


House of the Dead

by symphonyofmars



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, future smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-06-01 08:47:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 16
Words: 48,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15139466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/symphonyofmars/pseuds/symphonyofmars
Summary: A blurb that I daydreamed into existence that is just spiraling out of control.The creation of the Ghoulies and how Malachi became his 'bad boy' self.(This takes place after season 2, all canon pairings apply)This is also on my tumblr at symphonyofmars(dot)tumblr(dot)com





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a little blurb (which may or may not get a second bit?) for that adorable leader of the Ghoulies. Not sure I like the title, but whatever.
> 
> Anyway, who doesn’t want to be the most powerful woman in the room?
> 
> Word count: 1,760

“Just what hell is happening here?” A woman’s voice, low but commanding, boomed.

Everyone turned.

That same woman strode confidently over to the encircled gangs, both the Ghoulies and the Serpents chomping at the bit to get the brawl started. The light of headlamps danced off the long, heavily studded coat she wore, and her feet moved with the assured dull thudding of combat boots. Her attire suggested she was ready to join the fight, but her demeanor spoke to a personality of a calmer nature. Her appearance out of nowhere confused everyone.

Except for one person.

Confusion turned to realization and Malachi’s face brightened as the woman, who was smaller in stature than her voice indicated, walked over to the group.

“Uh, who the hell are you?” Penny asked indignantly.

The woman stopped in her tracks and held up a finger in Penny’s direction.

“I am not speaking to you. You will wait your turn.” She continued on her path to the Ghoulie’s leader.

“Seph… you’re back.” He said, his white teeth practically radiating light his smile beamed so brightly.

“I am. Leave it to you to make a mess while I’m gone.” Malachi’s smiled dropped.

“Persephone…”

Betty and Veronica glanced at each other, each knowing the other’s thoughts. _Persephone?_ They wordlessly asked in unison. What a name, and - Veronica thought - no one gets a name like that without living up to it. Somehow the parents of this woman who looked to be somewhere in her late 20s or early 30s, all 5'3" of her (Ronnie guessed), held her as a newborn and gave her the name of the Greek queen of the underworld. Veronica wondered if she was the only one who was aware of this, and - if anyone else had a least a passing knowledge of Greek mythology - if they were also a little scared.

Persephone smiled and smoothed her dark curls away from her face, trailing her fingertips down her neck and then trailing them up Malachi’s chest to his chin. “I’m sure I can forgive you. Now,” she traced Malachi’s lower lip, crumbling the last of his tough facade and worked a happy sigh from his throat, “what, exactly, is going on here?”

Malachi’s eyes were glued to her lips. “Penny wanted us to rough up the snakes.”

“We never had a problem with them before… Were you bored all by yourself?”

Malachi nodded.

“You know, if you wanted to play rough you could have just visited.”

"I didn’t want to leave the gang alone.”

“I’m sure the gang would have been fine if you took some time to visit me. Right babies?”

At this question suddenly directed at them, the Ghoulie gang members started nodding. Several of them smiled, a few elbowed each other knowingly.

Malachi looked around at the gang’s reaction, he averted his eyes and looked at the floor.

What? What? What? What? Betty frantically questioned. This was the guy who was ready to die during a drag race, the guy who nearly overran Pop’s, the guy who yelled for Archie to throw a Molotov right at him. Now he was like a chastised child in front of this woman?

“Baby,” Persephone cooed as she ran her fingers up his neck, “if you and the gang were bored you could have just said something. I would have found something for you to do. Something better than setting the neighboring town on fire.” She smoothed her hands over his cheeks and he blinked slowly and sighed.

Malachi nodded.

“Now, who is Penny?”

Malachi pointed and Persephone followed the gesture to the woman herself.

Penny responded by waving in a mocking manner.

“Ohh,” Persephone mused as she turned to face her, “looks like it’s your turn.”

Penny took a step forward. “Now maybe you’d like to tell us all who you are. I’ve got business to deal with and you’re wasting my time.”

Persephone leveled her gaze at Penny and smiled. “You’re the one I’ve heard so much about. Is it true you make high school kids run drugs for you? I’m sure I know a few FBI agents who’d just love to get a hold of you.”

Penny laughed. “Honey, you don’t know any FBI agents.”

Persephone cocked her head to the side. “No? Lots of lawyers do. But then, I’m sure you know that.” Penny laughed boisterously.

“Quit lying and tell me who you really are.” “Name’s Persephone. I created the Ghoulies. Malachi and I led them until I had to leave for law school, but I can see he’s gone a bit wild–”

in response, Malachi wrapped his arms around her shoulders and rested his face against her head. Persephone reached up and put her hand on his cheek.

“Never leave a man to do a woman’s job I suppose.” Jughead wasn’t sure but he thought he heard Malachi whisper “Sorry” into Persephone’s ear. _Did he just say sorry?_ He turned to Betty, his eyes wide with shock. Betty held his hand.

Penny was still unimpressed. “So what are you? His girlfriend?”

“Fiancée.” A word spoken in unison, said with a smile by Persephone and a growl by Malachi.

Penny’s eyes went wide and then narrowed.

 _Realization?_ Archie wondered. _Anger?_

“So what, she’s back and the deal’s off?”

Malachi rested his head on Persephone’s shoulder and closed his eyes. “Mmm… if she wants to, we fight. If she doesn’t want to, we don’t fight.”

“You can’t just back out!” Penny yelled, not bothering to disguise her anger. Malachi’s eyes flew open and stared at her for a good minute before directing the question to Persephone. “What do you want to do?”

Persephone turned around to face Malachi. “What do you think we should do?”

Malachi shook his head. “I want whatever you want.”

“Well,” Persephone started as she ran her hands along Malachi’s chest, “what I really want is to make up for all that lost time. Three years of barely seeing you was way too long.”

She pouted and he wrapped his arms around her. “Yeah?”

“Yes. And it seems like someone needs to be punished for driving the gang into the ground.”

“A _fun_ punishing?”

“If you’re lucky. But you also need to learn a lesson.”

Malachi pulled her closer to him.

“If I come back, we stop dealing.”

“How did you–”

“A little birdie told me. No more racing or being goons for hire, either. The Ghoulies I created were a bunch of punkass teenagers who needed a family, not outlaws and criminals.” “We needed the money.”

“Well, I have some better ideas, now that I’m back.” She looked towards the rest of the gang, “That goes for all of you! We will no longer be paid to do someone else’s dirty work.”

There were murmurs of “Yes, momma” and “Sorry, momma” from the younger members.

“It’s bad for the soul.”

Jughead and Archie looked at each other with surprise.

“The first thing we’re going to do,” Persephone whispered into Malachi’s ear, the heat of her breath making him shudder, “is back out of your deal with this hack.”

Persephone spun around and faced Penny. “The Ghoulies are backing out of their deal with you, you over-processed, bleached blond hag.”

Penny was dumbstruck.

“Does anyone defy the queen?” She bellowed.

The Ghoulies were dead silent.

“It appears to be unanimous,” she said smugly.

Malachi grinned and took her in his arms from behind, draping himself on her. “I love when you’re commanding.”

Persephone smiled. “Now why don’t you run on home while I’m still in a good mood.”

Penny scoffed dramatically. “No. No, you don’t get to show up and work your magic on my soldiers and leave me with nothing.”

“It’s not magic, darling. It’s respect,” Persephone said with a smile. “You can’t buy respect. Even if you are a millionaire gangster.” She winked.

Veronica rolled her eyes and sighed. _Of course_.

Penny’s eyes widened but she regained her composure. “Yeah, well the services have already been paid for. We expect them to be rendered.”

“Too bad.”

“Too bad? My client expects service! What do you think he’s going to do when that doesn’t happen, hmm?”

“Going to be a little difficult without his soldiers, wouldn’t you say?”

Penny growled. “My client paid!”

“Your client is an idiot who clearly didn’t know enough about his purchase.”

“Buyer’s remorse,” Malachi said with a laugh.

Persephone giggled and put her hand on his cheek. “Seems like he’s going to be struck with a severe case of it, yes.”

“Malachi, what the hell?!” Penny yelled. “I thought you were all in on this!”

Malachi held onto Persephone as he thought. “Maybe before, but,” he squeezed her tightly for a moment, “not anymore.”

“My client–”

“You can just stop saying ‘my client’ like he’s some kind of secret. I know who he is, Mal knows who he is, I’m sure even his daughter has figured out who he is at this point.”

Veronica nodded to herself. Archie grabbed her hand and held it and she leaned into him.

“Now, like I said. Why do you take off while I’m still in a good mood.”

Penny looked around - the Ghoulies, the Serpents, Archie and his annoying gang of do-gooder teens - not a single one of them was on her side. She might be one for showy gestures and brash decisions, but she liked to think she wasn’t stupid.

She might have been the only one in the vicinity thinking that.

She huffed angrily, spun on her heel and stomped away.

Persephone smiled and pressed Malachi’s face closer to hers.

The Goonies and the Serpents cheered. As much as both groups enjoyed fighting and trying to destroy each other, waiting for busted lips and wrenched joints to heal never was.

Malachi spun Persephone around and kissed her and she melted in his arms like they were the only two people around.

“Ahem,” a voice interrupted.

Both leaders looked in the direction of the voice, pupils blown out and breathing heavily.

“Before you two decide to go off and do… well, I’m sure we could all guess–”

The low murmur of suppressed laughter rolled through the crowd. Persephone smiled softly and Malachi pressed his lips to her temple.

Veronica herself laughed, and continued, “–Why don’t we have a little pow-wow? Find out who you are, discuss the whole 'The Ghoulies suddenly not working for my dad anymore’ thing. Could be fun.”

Persephone smiled as Malachi tried - only partially successfully - to kiss her neck. “Sure.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some more blurb for the first blurb.This is like the kind of shit you write in your brain when you’re trying to fall asleep at 1am lol.
> 
> Word count: 2,433

After soothing the egos of some of the Serpents and Ghoulies who were somewhat less eager to put aside their differences, both gangs adjourned to Veronica’s revamped speakeasy under Pop’s Chock’lit Shoppe. As many members as possible crammed themselves into the establishment, with the overflow taking up space in the diner proper and those that weren’t interested in food hanging near their cars outside.

Archie and company were more than surprised to find that most of the opposing members got along famously, the ones inside talking about their lives over food while the ones in the parking lot showed off their cars and bikes and compared notes and helped each other with mechanical problems.

The leaders of both gangs were sat in the back of the old speakeasy in what was once a VIP room. The room had obviously been swept up in the flurry that was Veronica’s remodeling, and featured plush couches in jewel tones, a low table for drinks, and mood lighting. It was a space that had been made warm and intimate, perfect for a tête-à-tête of leaders from once-opposing gangs.

Betty and Jughead sat next to each other, as did Archie and Veronica, and Cheryl and Toni. Malachi was stretched out across the length of one couch with his head in Persephone’s lap and his eyes closed.

“…thought I was going to Southside High but my mom and I moved, ended up at Greendale high instead where I met this lug of a man.” Persephone patted Malachi’s head making him smile. “My mom had no idea what went on or what I did and had no desire to know and I guess… the weird thing about being neglected as a kid is that you tend to gravitate towards other people who feel the same way and bond into a little family.” She curled Malachi’s hair around her fingers thoughtfully as she spoke. “That family got bigger and bigger as we graduated from one grade to the next and eventually we all got together and decided to make it official. So, we slapped a name on it and made jackets for fun. A few of the other members were _amazing_ with studs so of course we had to go with that look.”

Malachi laughed.

“Then I got into the college I wanted and had to leave. I feel I should apologize for accidentally inflicting him on all of you.”

Veronica leaned in. “Can I be blunt?”

“Go ahead.”

“Never apologize for the actions of a man.”

Persephone smiled, “I like you.” She flicked Malachi in the ear. “So? Anything to say for yourself?”

Malachi winced and rubbed his ear. “Can I plead the fifth?”

Persephone inhaled dramatically. “I am currently your judge, jury, and executioner, so no.”

Malachi sat up. He averted his eyes from the group as he thought. “I don’t… I don’t think I have an excuse. I have reasons, but not an excuse. And… they’re not even _good_ reasons.”

Everyone waited.

He looked around and sighed. “I was mad that you were gone. I _know_ that’s stupid, and that’s why I didn’t say anything about it to you. But I was still mad that we couldn’t be together like we said we were going to be before we graduated.”

“Plans, change, Mal.”

“I know, and I was happy for you and I was happy that you were happy, but I still felt alone and… upset. I’m aware I was childish.”

“You could have come with me.”

“It’s not like I could have also been a student. And I couldn’t leave the gang without a leader.”

“So… how was becoming a bunch of degenerates any better?”

“It… I… they trusted me like they trusted you and… we started running out of money and someone suggested that we start dealing for Clifford Blossom–”

“Daddy was always so good at community outreach,” Cheryl quipped.

“– and it turned out we were good at it. We were fast and efficient. I thought we’d only do it for a little while but when I tried to break the deal he offered us more money and next thing I know,” he looked into Persephone’s eyes, “we were too far gone. We were dealing for them for four years before he was caught, and then Penny picked up right where he left off.”

Jughead sighed. “Such a go-getter.”

“You didn’t… with her at all. Did you?” Persephone asked quietly.

A wave of realization washed over Malachi’s features and was almost immediately replaced by a second, more severe expression. “Never. I haven’t… uh.” He looked at the teens nervously.

“Come on, we all know what you mean!” Jughead shouted in jest. ‘Had sex!’“

"Jug,” Betty said and elbowed him with a laugh.

“We’re not children, you _can_ say it in front of us,” Toni deadpanned.

Malachi laughed nervously for a moment before continuing. “I didn’t have sex with anyone. I was serious when I asked you marry me, even though we were just kids when I asked. I _was_ waiting for you.”

Persephone’s eyes stung with the beginnings of tears.

“Did you… while you were away?” Malachi asked, his voice shaking.

The teens leaned in, curious of the answer.

“No. I could never cheat on you,” Persephone answered and wiped her eyes. “It _sucked_.”

Malachi laughed in earnest and gathered her up into his arms.

“You don’t know how stressful it was to be working through pre-law and then law school and to have constant tests and papers and be interning and have no breaks and not even have _that_ to relax… To not have you.”

Malachi smiled.

“It was all constant work and no car so I couldn’t go _anywhere_ , and—"

He tilted her face up towards his and kissed her.

She pulled away. “I don’t just mean for that, I mean for other things too,” she laughed.

He nodded. “I know.”

They kissed a few more moments before Veronica cleared her throat.

They relented, sitting next to each other, Malachi’s arm on the back of the couch.

“So, should we thank Betty for yet another amazing bit of sleuthing?” Veronica asked.

“V, as much as I would love to be the one who scared off Penny and saved my boyfriend’s gang, I didn’t do this.”

Veronica turned back to Persephone. “So, how did you know my dad was paying off the Ghoulies?”

“Or where we were?” Betty added. “Or that Penny was a lawyer?”

Persephone smiled. “About a week ago I was sitting in the office of my mentor and advisor. He took a call from a former student of his who was looking for information on a former student of the college, Penny. The caller was one Sierra McCoy who I recognized as the former Mayor of Riverdale. Well, if an ex-mayor is calling her alma mater for information on another alumnus, I need to find out why. So, I did some digging in the student books and called some people and lo-and-behold, Penny was a piece of shit.”

Jughead suppressed a laugh. “I think that’s an understatement at this point.”

“Sorry, about that, man,” Malachi offered.

“What happened?” Persephone asked.

“Penny had us, uh…”

“Your boyfriend had his gang beat the shit out of my boyfriend,” Betty said.

“Fiancé,” Persephone corrected, “though I’m suddenly having second thoughts.” She crossed her arms tightly against her chest, “What the hell, Malachi? You beat up a kid?”

“Hey! I’m not a kid.” Jughead protested.

“You’re what, seventeen? You’re a kid.” Persephone turned back to Malachi, “That’s it. Now that I’m back were going to do things my way; no dealing, no Penny, no fights, no Hiram Lodge, and no arson,” She angrily ticked off each point on her fingers as she listed them. “Anyone who has a problem with that can fight me, and that _includes_ you.”

Malachi threw his hands up. “No argument from me. I’ve been waiting for you to come back.”

Now she was pointing a finger at him. “Ahh, but I’m not cleaning up your messes for you. You’re going to have to apologize and make right everything you screwed up while I was gone, starting with Jughead here.”

Malachi looked at Jughead, who shifted in his seat, and back to Persephone. She inclined her head towards Jughead and raised both eyebrows.

“Yeah, uh… I don’t know what to say. I’m still a little pissed about the jail thing but, it wasn’t that personal. We were just holding up our end of the deal with Penny and Hiram. Hiram bailed us all out of jail after the race.”

Jughead looked stunned for a moment before looking at Betty, who tilted her head at Malachi and raised both eyebrows.

“Well… I wouldn’t be sitting here if I weren’t serious about peace between our gangs and… I have to say, I’m a little sad that it wasn’t personal since you almost killed me.”

Betty, Archie, and Veronica all furrowed their collective brows at him. Cheryl and Toni looked at each other, bemused.

“If you want to be friends, that might take some time… but thanks for the apology, I guess ”

Malachi smiled shyly and turned to Persephone. “I want to apologize to you for dragging the gang down into my… spiral of anger and depression over you leaving–”

“Is that what it was?”

He nodded. “It wasn’t right to let my self-destruction go beyond my own self. We’ve been engaged since high school, I should have taken solace in that and controlled myself.”

“You guys have been engaged since high school?” Betty asked, sensing a parallel.

Malachi smiled. “Since the third week of freshman year.”

“Well, we met in class the first day–”

“I sat behind her in English.”

She nodded. –“he did. We talked about homework and music and sat together at lunch, and in the third week he asked me to marry him.”

“You asked if I was crazy,” Malachi said with a laugh.

“You were, but I already liked you so I wasn’t about to tell you to piss off.” She continued, “So I told him that if we dated until senior year and he didn’t piss me off, we could get married after that.”

“We didn’t.”

“We can now. I’m back. We’d need an apartment or a house and I have a little money.”

“No student debt?” Veronica asked.

“I was _very_ on top of scholarships.”

“You’ll have to show us when we’re ready to go,” Archie added.

Malachi moved closer and touched his forehead to hers. He inhaled deeply, taking in the very fact that she was back and going to stay.

She touched his cheek. “We can get married now. If you want.”

* * *

After hours of genial chatting and friendly coexistence, most of the gang members decided that they had better turn in for the evening and go to sleep before they sun came up. A few members of either gang came to the door of the VIP room to say goodbye to their leaders before leaving. 

Sweet Pea in particular leaned in and asked Jughead if he wanted him to stick around ‘just in case’ but he was sent away, the atmosphere of the room so warm as to cause no one a sense of impending doom. However, the bags under his eyes made Jughead laugh to himself, as they betrayed any sense of being ready to fight on a moment’s notice.

“I don’t want to be the first to say it, but maybe we should all turn in as well?” Archie asked the group.

“So straight-laced, Archiekins. What would we do without you?” Veronica asked as she kissed him.

“I’m not that straight laced—” Archie responded before deciding that protesting a kiss was a stupid idea.

Cheryl and Toni sat with their fingers entwined. Toni pressed her lips to Cheryl’s knuckles.

“Do you want to go back to my house?” Cheryl asked.

“Sure,” Toni smiled.

As Cheryl and Toni stood, Jughead had a wave of sudden realization flash over him.

“Toni, remember when you told me that the Ghoulies were rumored to be cannibals?”

Toni nodded sleepily.

Jughead turned to Malachi and Persephone. “What about the accusations of cannibalism?” The topic had been in the back of his mind, nagging him since he learned about the Ghoulies.

“Accusations of–” Persephone went to ask, but was interrupted by Malachi laughing, without restraint and nearly falling off of the couch.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you laugh so hard before,” Persephone commented, no idea what was going on or why it was so funny.

Malachi motioned to her and whispered in her ear, making her unable to suppress her own laughter.

“When the cachinnations are over, please explain,” Cheryl said.

Malachi wiped tears from his eyes and tried to steady himself. “It's… it’s.. it’s not…” he said in between bouts of laughter. “It’s not _'cannibalism’_ ,” was the only thing he could muster before he continued laughing.

Cheryl and Toni shared a knowing glance.

“It was a joke that got out of hand.”

Persephone sat with a smile on her face as she waited for him to control herself.

“What?” Jughead asked. “OH.”

Betty looked at him and suppressed a giggle.

“Now I get it.”

“Wait, what?” Archie asked.

Veronica patted him on the shoulder, “Something we have yet to do, Archiekins. Don’t worry about it.”

“Really?” Jughead asked as Betty stood and beckoned him to stand so they could leave.

Persephone’s expression became somewhat grave. “Ronnie, you need to get on that.”

“I’m easing him in.”

“I still… I have no idea what’s going on,” Archie laughed nervously.

“Don’t you have the internet?” Cheryl asked as she and Toni left.

“Bye, guys,” Toni laughed.

“We’re going too,” Betty said as she led Jughead out of the room. “Bye guys.”

“Going to be a couple of fine young cannibals,” Jughead said with a laugh as he left.

“Well,” Persephone said as she stood, “As much as I would love to give a lecture on the finer points of human sexuality, I think we have to go as well.”

“I’d like to give you a lecture,” Malachi said as he pawed his way up Persephone’s body as he stood, ending by planting his lips on hers and squeezing her tightly, lifting her feet off the ground and walking them both out of the room.

Persephone pushed him off of her. “Bye guys—”

“We finished your car, by the way. Do you want to go see it?”

“I thought you had other plans?”

“After I show you the car, you’ll love it.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This blurb is growing dozens of legs and running away with me tucked in a basket. I have no control over it. Halp.
> 
> Word count: 3,048
> 
> There's a moodboard for the fic starting this chapter at: https://symphonyofmars.tumblr.com/post/174902050968

Malachi walked Persephone into the garage with his hands over her eyes. She giggled as he steered her around taken apart chassis and car parts in various states of amelioration that should have been cleaned up a long time ago.

“Okay,” he said into her ear. “I’m going to turn on the lights, keep your eyes closed.”

“Okay,” she smiled.

“I’m not kidding, I want you to keep them closed.”

“Look,” she moved his hands out of the way with her own and pressed them to her face. “My eyes are covered, I can’t see.” She laughed again, rousing a chuckle from her fiancé.

“Keep your hands there,” he said as he sprinted to the wall and flipped the switch. He resumed his spot next to her. “Okay, open.”

She took her hands from her face and opened her eyes slowly; her vision being filled with the shape of a car. The slow realization of what she was looking at overtook her.

She gasped and covered her mouth with her hands and whispered, “Malachi…”

He smiled and put an arm around her.

“It’s not…”

“It is,” he said as he smiled broadened.

She gasped louder and spun around. “You did _not_!” she shouted and shoved him so hard he went flying backwards a few feet and collided with a table of tools. Tool and parts clattered to the floor as he laughed.

“Malachi, you did not! I can’t believe it!”

He rested against the table. “Well, do you like it?”

“Come back here so I can shove you again!”

He laughed some more but stayed where he was.

“I can’t believe it! It’s gorgeous!”

“Check it out, sit in the driver’s seat.”

“Please tell me it’s not what I think it is.”

“A ’62 Cadillac Miller Meteor Hearse?”

“It _can’t be_.”

The hearse – imposing despite it’s glittering deep purple color – had a spider motif that ran through the redesign. A metal web made up the grille, metal web cut outs protected the small triangular windows next to the front windshield, and a spider sitting on a section of web replaced the landau bars on the rear panels of the vehicle.

“If you’re thinking it’s the one you saw in the junkyard when we hung out there as kids,” he said as he opened the driver’s side door for her, “then you’re right.”

She sat in the driver’s seat and ran her hands over the steering wheel. The car had come a long way from being a rusted-out chassis with torn open seats and a sun cracked roof.

Malachi opened the passenger side and stepped in, “What do you think?”

“Mal… it’s beautiful.”

Satisfied, Malachi leaned back in the passenger seat, secure in his ability to modify vehicles.

“Did you do this all by yourself?”

Malachi nodded. “Except for some of the engine stuff and paneling stuff where I needed another pair of hands.”

“This is amazing. I can’t believe you did all this.”

He smiled as he watched her runs her hands over the seats, the leather as supple as her own skin, and as she opened any compartment she could find. He flipped up a small panel, “It has built in USB ports for phone chargers.”

“You know, that’s something I’ve always felt was missing from hearses.”

Malachi laughed. “Do you remember the first time we saw this car? Just an emptied-out husk in the junkyard?”

Persephone nodded. “Do you?”

Malachi returned the nod.

She leaned her head on his shoulder. “Tell me the story.”

Malachi put his arm around her. “What do you mean? You were there,” he said with a laugh.

Persephone chuckled. “I know, but I want you to tell me… Tell me what you thought, as everything happened.”

Malachi smiled. He pressed his lips to the top of her head in a gentle kiss. “Well… it was the first day of high school—”

“You’re starting that far back?”

“I’ll start the story wherever I like, it’s _my_ story.”

Persephone laughed and snuggled into his side. “If you say so.”

“Ahem. It was the first day of high school…”

* * *

Malachi walked down the hallway and checked the number of his homeroom class again, comparing it to the room numbers he walked past. He was already taller than most students in his grade, evidenced in how he towered over them as they milled by, freshmen nervously looking for their own classes and seniors seemingly not giving a shit. His hair – which his grandma begged him to get cut the day before – was a dark messy mop that curled around his ears in an almost awkward way, as his decision to stop cutting his hair was a new one. His clothing – which his grandma bugged him about before he left for school, ‘You have to make a good impression on your first day, honey’ – sent the message that maybe he was cooler than the people around him and that he didn’t want to be there; a worn denim jacket, army green t-shirt with holes in the hem, worn jeans, and oxblood Doc Martens. His backpack echoed the vibe he hoped he was bringing across and was covered in patches from his favorite bands: Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Nine Inch Nails, Tool, Black Flag, and The Deftones were some of the many patches that were haphazardly sewn to the canvas of his Jansport, and which could have very well been holding it together.

Finally finding the room of his homeroom class, Malachi stood in the doorway and looked for a seat.

He saw a girl. She rifled through her backpack as she placed items from it onto her desk. Her notebook, her pencil case, a smaller notebook. He watched her for a moment as he took the image of her in; bright green hair pulled back into low pigtails, a faded band tee that he was certain was a Rollins Band shirt, under her desk he could see she wore a plaid mini skirt and fishnet tights – and as if his “damn the man” “down with the establishment” heart weren’t already thudding in his chest – she was wearing a pair of oxblood colored Doc Martens.

She looked up at the doorway for a moment, furrowed her brow at the boy who was staring at her and looked back down at her notebook, opening it and writing down the date.

Malachi snapped out of his daze. He tried to quickly – and more important, coolly – walk into the classroom and moved to sit in the seat behind her. His plan was nearly thwarted by another boy who had almost sat his backpack on the desk, before Malachi slammed his hand on the desk and glared at him, clearly claiming it for his own.

The other boy raised an eyebrow at him as if to say ‘WHATever, dude,’ and moved across the room to a different seat.

Malachi sat behind the girl, one part of his plan completed, but now he was out of ideas.

The teacher started the class, some of the students were rapt with the information they were being given, “This is the list of books we’ll be reading, you will be getting the first one tomorrow. You will have two tests on the tenets of the English language, and a paper for each book…” but Malachi wasn’t paying attention. Instead, his leg bounced restlessly as he tried to think up a way to talk to the girl in front of him.

He took his notebook and a pen out of his backpack and scribbled absentmindedly as he thought of an idea and finally, one came to him. He wrote something of the corner of a page from his notebook, tore it off, and crumpled it into a ball.

He inhaled, filling himself with determination and tapped the girl in front of him on the shoulder.

She tensed up but didn’t respond in any way.  

As quietly as he could, he ‘psst’-ed at her but she still didn’t respond.

Malachi grew impatient.

A crumpled-up paper sailed over her shoulder, landing on her desk.

She opened it.

_Can I borrow a pen?_

It was written in pen.

She crumpled the paper back up and threw it back over her shoulder, hoping I would hit him in the face.

It didn’t.

Malachi looked at the paper where it landed on his desk wondering what his next move should be.

Suddenly his arm was over her shoulder and he felt the heat of her neck for a brief moment as he dropped a new note onto her book.

She sighed as she opened the note and smoothed it out to read it.

_Sit with me at lunch?_

Malachi sat and gripped his pencil as he waited, wrought with tension. He tried to look over her shoulder, wondering what was taking her so long. She didn’t throw it back at him but was she writing back? Or was the not going to bother–

A crumpled paper hit him in the face, jarring him from his thoughts. He pried the paper from itself and read her response.

_How do you know we even have the same lunch period?_

He smiled. As he wrote his response and wadded up the paper, the girl held her hand out over her shoulder. He placed the note in her hand.

_What period do you have lunch?_

She rolled her eyes and responded.

_5th._

_Me too. Sit with me?_

She sighed and wrote her response, handing it back to Malachi.

_Fine. I’ll meet you by the cafeteria doors._

* * *

Malachi stood by the cafeteria doors and quickly looked in both directions, keeping an eye out for the girl from his homeroom class. Back and forth as he leaned against the cool, painted cement wall, he looked at the chipped paint and wondered how many times it had been painted over. As he became more absorbed in the chipped paint he was thrown back into reality when a girl’s voice said—

“Hey.”

Malachi looked up and his eyes went wide. “Hi, uh… hey.”

The girl raised an eyebrow and gestured to the cafeteria doors. “Are we going to eat?”

“Uh, yeah.”

She walked towards the doors as Malachi followed behind her.

“Hey, I just realized that I never asked your name.”

“Uh huh.”

“Huh?”

“ _You_ bothered _me_ in class. You’re going to have to work for it.”

Malachi smiled as he followed her into the lunchroom.

The girl surveyed the room. “I’m going to hit the lunch line, you can sit if you want.”

“No, I’ll get you lunch.”

She put a hand on her hip. “You don’t even know what I want.”

“Well, if I get it right, maybe you could tell me your name?” He asked and smiled broadly at her.

She returned the smiled, though hers was wry and skeptical. “Maybe.”

He handed her his backpack after fishing his lunch card out of it. “Here, sit wherever, I’ll find you.”

The girl, a little perplexed at someone just giving her all their stuff without knowing them, found a seat in a rather unpopulated area of the cafeteria. Not knowing what else to do, she took out a book and started reading.

Malachi stood in the lunch line and searched the tables for her, finding her way off in the corner. He wondered why she chose to sit in such an isolated area right before he wondered why she was reading. Was he already boring her? Should he have stood in the lunch line with her? He wondered if he was screwing up.

“Found you,” he said with a smile five minutes later as he sat a lunch try down in front of her.

She looked up and put her book away.

“What were you reading?”

“Lord of the Flies. If you weren’t busy passing notes during English, you would have known that we have to read chapters one and two by tomorrow.”

He sat across from her and she passed her backpack to him. “Thanks. Hey, you were passing them back.”

“Yeah, but _I’m_ good at multitasking.”

He smiled, and she returned the action.

“So, what do you think?”

“Hmm,” she hummed as she viewed the lunch he brought her. “Well, we have tater tots, always a good choice, strong start. We have a cheese pizza slice, nice ratio of crust to cheese. We have some milk, very healthy, lots of vitamins and minerals, it’s also full fat which is my favorite.”

“Skim is just milk-water.”

She nodded, “It is, it is. We have an apple, also very healthy, and then we bring the fun in with two brownies to round it off.” She continued to look at the tray as if she were preparing to critique a work of art.

Malachi had to stifle a laugh, “So?”

She looked at his tray.

“Did you give me your brownie?”

“Yeah. I thought you might like two, to make up for annoying you during class.”

She smiled, took one of the brownies and placed it on his tray.

“You don’t want it?”

“I only need one. If you give me yours then you don’t have dessert.”

He tilted his head at her in confusion. “So… do you like it?”

“It’s a very solid school lunch. And the offer of your own brownie was a nice gesture.”

“So you like it?”

“Yes. I do.” The girl popped a tater tot into her mouth.

“So… do I get to know your name?”

She chewed thoughtfully. “Mm… no.”

“Why not?”

She shrugged. “I don’t think you’ve earned it yet. And P.S. I said ‘maybe’ when you asked if getting me lunch could earn you my name, not ‘yes’.”

“…That’s true.”

“So, tell me something.”

Malachi started eating his own lunch. “Um, tell you what?”

She shrugged again. “Anything. You’re the one who wanted to talk to me, dude. Do some talking.”

* * *

A lunch period at Greendale High School lasted fifty-five minutes. That meant – after waiting in line for food and finding a seat – a student had about 45 minutes to hang out with their friends. Or make new ones.

Malachi spent most of the time telling the girl from his English class about his own life. He liked music, he liked cars, he liked concerts and hanging out with friends. He didn’t have too many because most of them moved away with their families when their parents got promotions and moved to Riverdale, but he still had his grandmother.

“I think like… most guys would say it’s stupid or whatever to say their grandma is their best friend, but she basically raised me.”

“What happened to your parents?”

He sighed. “My parents got divorced when I was ten and my dad moved away right after. My mom was such a bad mom that my grandma filed for custody and my mom didn’t even fight her on it.”

“How was she a bad mom?”

“Neglectful stuff like forgetting me at the grocery store… and sometimes mean stuff like hitting me when I made her mad.”

“What did you do to make her mad?”

“Just… regular kid shit. Making a mess or knocking something over by accident. She hit me with a stick she grabbed from outside once.”

“Wow…”

“Yeah.”

“I guess it’s a good thing your grandma won custody.”

“Yeah. She’s not my real mom, obviously, but I couldn’t ask for a better mother. But… you know, she’s getting old.”

The girl nodded.

“How about you?”

“Mmm… my dad died in a work accident when I was eleven and my mom works two jobs, so I barely see her. And then, when she is around, she’s not much fun because she’s tired.”

“…Wow.”

“Yeah.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes, each picking at the remains of their lunch. Malachi didn’t know what to say. He looked up at her and she looked back at him, both completely silent. She didn’t look away, and he couldn’t tell if he felt unnerved, intimidated, or something else. What he did know was that he felt like he was being pulled into her eyes, light green irises encircled by a darker ring, striking and beautiful at the same time.

“Persephone.”

“What?”

“That’s my name,” she said as she rolled her eyes. “Persephone.”

Malachi was taken aback, but then something connected in his brain. “I think I’ve heard that name before.”

“Was it in junior high during the ‘Greek Myths’ segment of seventh or eighth grade English class?”

A look of realization washed across his face slowly. “Oh my god, yeah! She was the wife of Death of something?”

“She was the wife of Hades, who presided over the dead, he wasn’t Death. That was someone else.”

“Oh. You remember all that?”

“Well, I figure if you have a name like mine, you might as well know who you were named after. Someone’s going to ask at some point.”

Malachi smiled. “Well, I like it. It’s interesting.”

Persephone returned the smile.

“Mine’s Malachi, by the way. I just realized you never asked.”

“You could have made me work for it.”

He laughed.

* * *

At the end of lunch, they were ushered out of the cafeteria with the rest of the students. They said their goodbyes and set off in the directions of their next classes Persephone in one direction and Malachi in the other. A sudden jolt of inspiration went through Malachi, and he spun around and looked over the crowd.

“Persephone! Seph!”

Persephone heard her name over the din of the other students and spun around.

“What?”

“Go on a date with me!”

“What?” She forced her way back through the crowd to where Malachi was. “It’s a good thing you’re so tall and so easy to see in a crowd.”

He laughed.

“You’re asking me on a date?”

“Yeah,” he smiled.

Persephone pretended to be thinking intently about his question. “Well… you did by me lunch… but that only made up for your being annoying earlier.”

Malachi laughed again, but awkwardly.

“What day were you thinking?”

“I don’t know. Friday or Saturday?”

“Mmm… how about next Friday?”

“Why next Friday?”

“We’ll see how much you annoy me in class before then. And I reserve the right to change my mind. If you annoy me enough I may not want to go out with you.”

Malachi beamed as he shrugged. “Fine. Next Friday.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Isn’t young love just cute?
> 
> Word count: 3,216

“Happy Monday.”

Persephone turned around and viewed Malachi with a raised eyebrow. “You’re a very odd person, you know that?”

Malachi smiled and sat in his seat, the one right behind hers. “Well, it’s going to be a good week if I get to start it by looking at your face.”

“You are seriously so weird.”

“And it’ll be an even better week if I get to take you out on Friday.”

Persephone smiled. “Don’t get too ahead of yourself, buddy.”

Class started, and Malachi did actually pay attention and write down notes—for the first half of the class.

A folded-up piece of paper tumbled over Persephone’s shoulder and into her lap.

_Hey._

She squinted at it and when the teacher turned around, sent her response sailing back over her shoulder.

_What?_

_I was thinking a movie and maybe some food?_

_This is what you’ve decided to do instead of pay attention? Lol_

_You distract me._

_You’re looking at the back of my head._

_Fine. Then the thought of you distracts me._

_You better keep those thoughts in your brain, pal._

_They will not find a way out. My grandmother raised a gentleman._

_Good. Then pay attention._

Malachi smiled and shoved the wrinkled paper into his pocket. He leaned his head on his hand and copied all the notes from the board, and even took extra notes of what the teacher was saying. He only occasionally doodled in the margins.

When the bell rang, Persephone stood and put her books in her backpack. Malachi did the same, though much messier, and waited until she finished arranging her things neatly and put her backpack on.

“Can I walk you to your next class?”

She tilted her head to the side for a moment as she thought. “Yes,” she smiled, “Yes you can.”

They made their way into the hall and joined the flow of other students. The many bodies moving in opposing directions were like so many water molecules, swept up in the momentum of being. The cacophony of noise – laughing at jokes, groaning at schoolwork, and the odd flirtation of a new couple – was so loud, Malachi was afraid they wouldn’t be able to have a real conversation.

“Uh, what class do you have next?”

“Biology.”

“Ah.”

They walked in silence as Malachi tried to think of something else.

“What do you have?” Persephone asked.

“Math.”

She nodded.

“I’m not that great at it.”

“Well, if you stop passing notes, I’m sure you’ll have more time to pay attention.”

Malachi laughed a short laugh. “I only do that in our class.”

Persephone chuckled. “Did you actually read the book at all?”

“Yeah. I finished it over the weekend, it was pretty interesting.”

“You finished it?”

“Yeah. Is it that surprising?”

“I suppose. I thought you’d just read what we had to.”

“Well… once I started it, it turned out to be interesting so I finished it.” He shrugged.

“Hm.” She smiled, “Can I tell you something the librarian at the library near my house told me?”

“You go to the library?”

“Yeah. After school, to do homework.”

“Sure.”

“So, he always has weird literary facts to share whenever I walk in, like, he’s just a cool dude. I told him that we were reading Lord of the Flies and he told me that Golding wrote the book as a response to this other book that was also about young boys getting marooned on an island, but they acted like perfect gentlemen and made a plan and got rescued.”

“So it made him mad?”

“I think that Golding thought it was extremely unlikely that a bunch of young boys would actually accomplish anything.”

Malachi laughed. “As someone who was a young boy, I think I agree.”

Now Persephone laughed. As she steered them towards her next classroom, the students in the halls thinned out until there was barely anyone besides them. The stonework in this wing of the school was nicer and looked like it had never been painted over. Malachi wondered why.

“This area of the school is so quiet,” He observed.

“Yeah. It’s because there’s different labs in here.”

“Different?”

“Like, more equipment? For advanced classes.”

“Oh… so you’re pretty smart.”

“I guess.”

Malachi thought for a moment. “Wait, how did we end up in the same English class?”

“I failed out of honors English at the end of eight grade.”

“How? You go to the library and everything.”

She shook her head. “I had this _weird_ teacher who made us sing kumbaya and get in a circle and hold hands and make wishes and tell them to the rest of the class and shit. I didn’t want to do any of it so she gave me a 74 in the class.”

“I thought passing was 65?”

“In honors classes it’s 75.”

“Wow, what the fuck?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s so shitty.”

“ _Yeah._ Then it was this whole thing where my mom could have appealed it but when they called her she was at work and they only gave her a day to appeal it or whatever…” she sighed, “whatever.”

“Oh… So you don’t even belong in our class… Sorry for annoying you in class last week.”

Persephone smiled. “I have to admit, I was actually annoyed when you were bothering me while I was trying to pay attention. But you made up for it with the lunch and by not actually being annoying.” She stopped at a classroom door. “This is me.”

Malachi peeked into the room, the lab setup was way more complicated than the one in his Biology class. He could see the warning signs for various chemicals, and that there was a coat rack with the a lab coat for each student on it. His class only occasionally got goggles and had no lab coats.

“You should probably get going before you’re late.”

He nodded. “Before I go though… if I don’t actually annoy you… does that mean we’re on for Friday?” He ended his question with a big smile and two thumbs up.

Persephone laughed, shook her head, and walked into the classroom.

* * *

“Have you decided yet?” Malachi asked, in between bites of his food.

“Decided what?”

“Decided what movie we're going to see.”

Persephone rolled her eyes and sighed. “Dude, I don't even know what's out right now. I barely watch TV.”

“There was one, uh… Crank? That looked like it could be fun.”

Just then, someone – dressed to the nines in their best original 1970s punk look – walked by and threw a postcard-sized piece of paper onto the table.

“Nice to talking to you too, buddy,” Persephone waved as the kid threw papers on other tables, headphones on and not listening.

Malachi chuckled and read the paper.

“What's it say?” Persephone asked as she finished off her fries.

“There's a punk show down at Bleeker’s tonight.”

“I don't know where that is. “

“It’s in the industrial area near the junkyards. There’s a couple auto-body shops there and a tile place or something?’

“Never been there.”

“It’s pretty close to where I live, actually. Do you want to go to it?”

“I mean… I guess we could…”

It took all of the might Malachi had to suppress his wanting to jump from excitement.

“… But we should probably get food first.”

“Where do you want to go?”

Persephone sighed. “How about you surprise me. Pick a place.”

“Uh…” he thought but came up with nothing for a few minutes.

Persephone drank the last of her milk through a straw, and Malachi found himself suddenly very distracted.

“Hmm?”

“Oh! Uh—We can go to Big Al’s.”

“That diner on Nelson? Sure.”

Malachi smiled.

“How are we going to get there though? Neither of us can drive.”

“Yeah, so… I drive.”

“Aren’t you like, fourteen? You can’t drive!”

“I’m fifteen, okay? I got held back in second grade because I missed too many days.”

Persephone curbed her initial incredulity. “Oh… were you sick?”

“No, my mom just didn’t make me go so I didn’t go.”

“Isn’t that illegal?” She went right back to her incredulous attitude and waved away his answer. “Okay, but you’re still not sixteen.”

“No, but my grandma has a hard time driving lately so she makes me do it for her. And I never get pulled over because I’m so tall.”

Persephone rolled her eyes and sighed. She looked away as she thought, but out of the corner of her eye she could see the expression on Malachi’s face as it moved from defensive to a sneaking look of heartbreak. She looked back at him.

“If we get arrested because you don’t have a license, I _will_ kill you.”

Malachi smiled broadly. “I will be on my best behavior behind the wheel.”

“You better be,” Persephone said and grabbed some fries off his lunch tray.

* * *

Just like the first day of school outfit that Malachi had put together in an effort to look cool, but not in a way that said he was trying, his outfit for his date with Persephone had to communicate the same. Not to her, mind, but to the other people around them. If she dressed the way she did at school at the concert, then he was already going to look under-dressed, if she got ‘dressed up’ he was screwed. He didn’t want anyone to think they weren’t there together and ruin it for him. This was the exact thought going through his mind as he pulled a pair of black torn-up-stitched-back-together-covered-in-black-and-white-band-patches-shittily-studded-in-some-parts jeans out of the bottom of the mess in his closet. They were the ultimate work of art to him, and the only reason he gave even half a shit about the crafts class he was made to take in junior high. They were covered in hand made patches he made for all his favorite bands, white paint on black fabric, and they had been ripped apart and sewn back together so many times that it was a wonder they hadn’t fallen apart completely. He pulled his favorite Black Flag shirt out of the closet and got dressed, adding the new black denim jacket he bought the weekend before. He had spent most of the afternoon after school painstaking adding studs to the shoulders to transform it from just a jacket to _the_ jacket. He looked at himself in the full-length mirror in his grandmother’s room to make sure he was ready.

“Mal? Is that you?” His grandmother called from downstairs.

“Yeah, mama, I’m going out.”

“Come downstairs and talk to me. You know I hate yelling.”

He grabbed his wallet and keys from his room and joined her in the kitchen, escorted by one of his grandma’s three huge rottweilers. She called them her ‘protectors’ who kept the house safe from burglars and door-to-door salesmen, and while they had been known to get rough with outsiders, they were always caring towards her and her grandson.

“Hey Bear,” Malachi said as he pet the face of the dog who had walked him into the room.

His grandma was cutting vegetables and sternly talking to one of the other dogs. “Leo, you better sit because you’re not getting anything, don’t even try.” She smiled when Malachi gave her a kiss on the cheek. “You said you were taking a girl out, right?”

“Yeah, we’re going to a concert at Bleeker’s.”

“You be safe, it can get bad over there. Don’t drive stupid and you treat her right,” she said as she pointed the knife at him.

“Yes, mama.”

She went back to chopping vegetables. “You like this girl?”

Malachi smiled. “Yeah.”

“How long you know her for?”

“A week? Since the first day of class.”

“Mmm…”

Malachi looked around, “Where’s Tiny?”

“In the front room looking out the window. The Mormons have been around again. I don’t like ‘em.”

“Yeah, neither do I.”

“You better be good tonight, Mal. I know you’re tall and all so you think it means you can pass for an adult, but you’re still young. Behave and don’t give anyone a reason to bother you.”

“Yes, mama,” he kissed her on the cheek, “I gotta go.”

“Have fun!” she called after him as he walked out the door. “Lock the top lock!”

She waited until she heard the _thunk_ of the deadbolt sliding into place. Satisfied, she went back to chopping vegetables.

* * *

Malachi was happy he had spent so much time on what he wore, because Persephone did get ‘dressed up.’ Her hair, freshly dyed an electric green as of mid-week was pulled up in high pigtails, her eyes sporting a deep red smokey eye that made her look like she had smeared the blood of her enemies over each eye, and her lips painted black. She wore a black tank top with a completely illegible band name, a black pleated mini skirt that had studding and then her – as he thought – personal trademark of black fishnets and oxblood boots. She looked like she could kick his ass and not give a shit, and he would have totally let her.

He stopped the car and got out.

“Wow, you look…” he trailed off as he couldn’t think of the completely correct words to describe her except for maybe gushing at how cool she looked.

“’You look’ as well,” she said as she walked past him to the passenger side of the car.

He snapped out of his daze. “Wait, wait,” he ran to the passenger door and opened it for her with a flourish.

She rolled her eyes, “You really are going to be a gentleman, aren’t you?”

“ _Such_ a gentleman. I may not even let you have your way with me.”

Persephone laughed as he closed the door and got in on the driver’s side.

* * *

The car ride had been as uneventful as Malachi had promised. He drove at the speed limit and checked his blind spots as he drove them to Big Al’s to eat and then safely drove them directly to the concert for the doors opening at 9pm.

“So,” Persephone began as Malachi opened the car door for her, “is our illegality for the night just you driving us? Or are we going to bluff our way into a few beers?”

“Uh, I have to drive. You can if you like.”

Persephone faked a glare at him before smiling. “I’m just kidding. Let’s get some X’s on our hands, huh?”

Malachi laughed a laugh of relief as they walked towards the venue.

They were greeted at the door by a large, balding man with a long beard and the classic black tee of a bouncer.

“Money and I.D.’s”

They each forked over eight dollars for the ticket and their I.D.’s. He pocketed the money and looked at the two I.D.’s under his flashlight, rubbing the space over their birthdates to see if they had been doctored. He handed them back and pulled a marker from his pocket.

“Dominant hand, please.”

They both held out their right hands and were gifted with a large black ‘X’ drawn across the back in a chisel tip.

“Enjoy the show.”

They thanked him and walked the short flight of stairs down to where the concert hall was. The bar was off to one side and had a series of ropes around it with another bouncer standing guard so the younger patrons couldn’t attempt to get drunk. Malachi thought maybe it was so the bartender didn’t have to get harassed by kids trying to trick them into giving them a beer every few minutes.

The room was packed. Most people had already arranged themselves at the good spots near the front of the venue so they could be closer to the speakers. The music piped over the PA – various popular alternative music – filled in the silences in the conversations around them as people milled around, drink in hand or no, waiting for the show to start.

Malachi was almost startled when Persephone grabbed his jacket, stood on her toes, and got very close to him.

“Do you remember the names of any of the bands playing?”

“Uh… no. I left the flier at home.”

She nodded in affirmation and looked around at the crowd.

He watched her. He had no idea what to say; at least if they went to a movie they weren’t expected to talk during the movie, so that gave him an out, and they had something to talk about afterwards, but this was torture. They had a nice conversation over dinner at the diner, sure, but it was mostly about their class and homework. It was just small-talk, not the type of conversation he wanted to have with her but at least they had something to talk about. That was not the kind of conversation one had in a concert venue, as if they could even have one over the music.

“Hey!” Persephone said loudly over the music as she hit him in the chest. She pointed to a series of wooden boxes that were lined up by the wall. He understood her meaning when he saw that quite a few other girls were sitting atop them with their, he supposed, dates standing near them chatting happily.

He followed as she walked over to them.

Once she reached them she turned around and attempted to hoist herself up onto an unoccupied one, but found she was too short.

Malachi leaned over and spoke into her ear. “Need help?” He thought that maybe she masked a shudder.

She turned around to face him and nodded.

One hand under each arm, he hoisted her up onto the box where she sat and smoothed her skirt down.

She smiled at him.

He leaned into her ear again, “Now you’re taller than me.”

“Intimidated?” She asked, the skin of her cheek barely brushing his.

That wasn’t the word he would have used.

The sound of the piped music suddenly stopped, and the first band came out and made last-second adjustments to their instruments. The crowd buzzed with excitement and all focused on the stage, a few people giving whoops of encouragement that the band members acknowledged.

The microphone squealed when the singer – a thin guy with a bright pink mohawk – went to speak into it. He recoiled and everyone jeered. “Hey, sorry about that. We’re Dorothy’s Brain Scan,” he spun on his heel and turned around, counting off to the band.

The music blared to life, all crashing drums and simple but powerful guitar and bass chords. The singer jumped around and screamed the words into the mic like he was descended from Johnny Rotten himself, and the guitarist and bass players jumped around and crashed into each other more than once. The lights flashed almost in time with the music, but not quite, and the middle of the crowd opened up to the mosh pit and people began swinging their limbs and running around as they slammed into each other.

The songs barely had a structure, and Malachi couldn’t figure out if it was from the cheap sound setup or if they were written that way on purpose. Out of the corner of his eye he tried to watch Persephone to see if she were enjoying the music and was happy to see her bobbing her head along to the beat.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First dates are adorable, someone please punch me in the face.
> 
> Word count: 1,582

The two other bands were just as loud and fun, but for a few differences in presentation:

The second band’s singer seemed to be confused or possibly suffering from low self-esteem when he introduced the band with, " Hey, we’re The Silver Girls. We're like the Golden Girls but not as good… I guess? We might change the name… I don’t know.” Malachi thought they were good though the singer needed to do something to fix his demeanor.

The last band, Jane Austpocalypse, was the strangest to Malachi, mostly because of the ‘punk rock bonnets’ as the singer called them; these were ratty looking straw bonnets with plaid ribbons, rings pierced through the brim, and studs. Definitely handmade. He was also a little confused by some of the words and the lyrics such as ‘dance card,’ ‘importune me no longer,’ and ‘very bad, indeed,’ but if Persephone was enjoying it - and she was by the way she was patting out the rhythm on her knees - he guessed it was good. He’d decided to ask her what any of it meant afterwards.

* * *

 

At some point during the song ‘Letter to a Rosings Park Bitch’ the mosh pit started to get out of control for the fourth or fifth time that night.

One of the moshers had his glasses knocked clean of his face by someone doing a windmill and he could do nothing but watch helplessly as they arched through the air and landed in the crowd of people. Without hesitation Persephone jumped off the box to where the kid was. Malachi could barely hear her over the band, asking the kid if he saw where they fell. He shook his head no and she started scanning the floor in between the moving bodies. After searching fruitlessly for a few seconds, she started tapping people on the shoulder and talking in their ear. After a minute, the entire group of people near them was no longer moshing, instead they were also looking at the floor for the glasses. Finally, one person held them up over the group and the rest of them let out a cheer, they were remarkably unscathed. The finder handed them over to their owner and patted him on the shoulder, and the whole group happily pat him on the shoulders and wished him well before they went back to throwing themselves into each other. The owner of the glasses turned to Persephone and thanked her, and she walked back over to Malachi.

He leaned over to her. “Do you know him?”

“No. But glasses are expensive, dude. You can’t just let them go.”

* * *

 

“And that was it.”

Persephone lifted her head of Malachi’s shoulder for a moment to look at him. “What was it?”

“That was the moment I realized I was completely in love with you.”

“Because I saved some kid’s glasses?”

“Well it wasn't just that, it was also some of the stuff that happened _because_ of that... But I’d never seen anyone be so unconditionally kind before.”

She smiled at him sweetly. “We didn’t see the car yet, though.”

“Oh, you want the whole story?”

“Yeah, tell me the whole thing.”

“I thought I was telling you how much I love you.”

She snuggled closer to him. “I thought you were telling me about this sweet, sweet car.”

He chuckled. “Okay.”

* * *

 

“Do you want to sit on the box?”

“Yeah, man, I can’t see shit.”

“You are pretty short.”

She scoffed. “We can’t all be tall freaks like you.”

He laughed and picked her up, plopping her back onto her box.

The rest of the set ended without any more lost glasses. Though, at some point, the singer had acquired a riding crop and was spanking herself with it screaming, “Ride me, Mr. Darcy!” which was significantly weirder. That made Malachi double down on his decision to ask later about what any of it meant.

He turned to Persephone as she hopped off the box and dusted off her legs.

“Ready to go?”

She smiled. “Yeah.”

Malachi held out his hand, a subconscious movement that he would have immediately regretted – the terror of ruining the entire night with one wrong move washing over his features as he realized what he did – if it weren’t for Persephone taking his hand in a similar instinctive fashion.

He smiled, not wanting to say anything dumb to screw up their moment, and she smiled back as she swung their hands between them.

* * *

 

They held hands all the way back to the car and all the way back to Persephone’s house, only letting go so Malachi could shift gears. After every gearshift their hands were right back together, fingers knit in silent contentment.

The night was cool the way a September night is after the day was warm; the air itself was cool but something about it was different than the warm night air in June or July. Maybe it was the shift in temperature throughout the day, but it was calmer somehow, quieter. That quiet made every moment seem more important because everything around it was dulled, farther in the background where every action was in the foreground. Both of them felt this, and as the cool air swirled in the car and around their hands, the heat of each other’s skin was so prominent in their minds as to be the only thing they thought of during the ride.

Once they arrived at Persephone’s house, Malachi opened the car door for her, taking her hand and walking her up to her front door.

“So… goodnight,” he said, trying not to be awkward and feeling very much like he _wasn't_ succeeding.

Persephone nodded.

They stood in silence, still holding hands.

“So uh… it turns out I had a better time than I thought I was going to.”

Malachi smiled. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. And… it turns out I like you more than I expected I was going to.”

Malachi’s smile spread out across his face, goofy and endearing. He felt _giddy_. “Yeah?’

“Yeah.” She looked down at their hands and entwined her fingers in his, laughing softly. “How dare you ask me out and be a gentleman all night even though you could have tried to kiss me multiple times.”

“I could have?”

“There were a couple times I thought you were going to.”

Malachi was… he didn't know what he was. He had wanted to, he had _really_ wanted to, but he never thought that she might have expected it.

“ _When?_ ”

“Mmm… like whenever our faces got real close while we were talking at the concert.  And just now when you walked me to the door.”

“You… uh…” He was sure he was visibly red. He could feel the heat rising off his face.

“You know, you're kind of cute the way you get all flustered.” She tightened her fingers around his and stepped closer.

“I'm glad you think so, you're the only one who's ever made me… ‘flustered’.”

Now it was Persephone's turn to be red.

“Can I…” His voice dropped to a whisper, wanting to ask the question but terrified of the answer. “Can I kiss you?”

She nodded.

He took his hand from hers and placed them at her waist and pulled her towards him. He stared into her eyes, normally green but darkened now by the lack of light.

She giggled, “What are you doing?”

“Deciding.”

“Deciding wh--”

Suddenly his mouth was pressed against hers and one of his hands had moved to the back of her head where it helped him set the pace. Surprised, her hands ended up on his chest before migrating to his neck, where she pulled herself up, using the leverage to help her balance on her toes so her face could reach his easier.

The almost frantic bassy thrum of… something thundered louder and louder in Malachi's ears before he realized it was his own heart, hammering inside his chest. It drowned out the soft chirping of the crickets and the quiet fall night around them, isolating the moment and bringing it into extreme focus as it did so. The rest of the world fell away and the two of them were all that remained. To him, their kiss was the only thing in the world of any importance in that moment. His heart - beating intensely from excitement and nerves - was so loud he wondered if Persephone heard it too.

She moaned as she pressed closer to him; his desire pulling her in and her own letting him. Her body naturally relaxed and she let herself sink into his embrace. In that moment she wanted nothing more than to be as close as possible to him. The feelings of want that his kiss stirred made her knees weak. Her hold around his neck tightened, as it was all she could do to keep from losing her footing.

He wanted nothing more than to be pressed against her soft lips, their tongues gently touching as they explored each other’s mouths. Her flesh searing his skin as he held onto her, her fingers idly moving through his hair, toying with the lengthening curls.

After a few more moments they had to come up for air and managed to pull themselves apart. Both were breathlessly satisfied. Persephone leaned her head on his chest.

“I _so_ don't want to go inside,” she said with a chuckle.

Malachi smiled and kissed the side of her neck. “You could stay out here with me.”

“I want too… but it's late and you still have to drive home.”

“It's not that far away,” he said in between more neck kisses.

In vain, she tried to fight. “Don't you have a curfew or something?”

“Mmmhm,” he murmured as he continued kissing her neck, tightening his grip on her.

A blissful sigh escaped Persephone's lips before she had mind enough to pull herself out of his embrace. She put a hand on either side of his face to stop him from trying again, staring into his eyes.

“I'm serious though, I have to go in.” She touched her nose to his and nuzzled him before giving him one last soft kiss on the lips. She fished her keys out of her bag and turned to go inside.

“Can I see you tomorrow?”

“Mmm… I usually go to the library on Saturdays to work on homework.

“Well… could I join you there?”

She unlocked the door. “Only if you plan on actually studying.”

“Libraries are for book learnin’, not foolin’ around,” he said as he held up his hand in a boy scout salute.

“You were in the boy scouts?”

“For about a day before my mom realized she had to pay for it.” He shrugged, “That was the only thing I learned.”

“You're a man of many experiences,” she laughed. “It's East Greendale library. I'll meet you there at 10.” She pushed open the door with the intention of going inside.

“A.M.?” Malachi asked somewhat incredulously.

“Is that a problem?” she countered.

“Uh… no. See you then.”

She smiled. “Goodnight, Malachi.”

“Goodnight.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Woah when the person you like likes you back and your brain turns to mush and your heart feels like it’s gonna explode…
> 
> Get it together, kid.
> 
> ALSO: I had one vote for smut (on tumblr) so I think there will be smut I just need to figure out where it's going and remember how to write it.
> 
> Word Count: 3,470

After driving home that night, Malachi didn’t get much sleep. Regardless of that fact, he was still at East Greendale Library at 10am, having parked his car at Persephone’s house at 9:45 and walked there with her. Persephone opened the door just as he turned off the car and got out.

“So you just came here hoping I would be leaving the house at this time?”

“Google Maps said it was a fifteen-minute walk from your house and I thought maybe you’d like someone to walk with,” he took her tote bag of extra books off her shoulder as they walked, leaving her to carry her backpack. “See? I can carry your stuff for you.”

“You are just so very weird.”

Malachi laughed.

“Are all guys raised by their grandmother like this?”

“Like what?”

“Secretly old gentlemen.”

He laughed again.

“I’m half expecting you to pull out a pipe and tell me about ‘the good ol’ days.’”

* * *

“You’re kicking my foot.”

“Sorry.”

Persephone went back to writing and wrote two more sentences before she could no longer stand the _thock, thock, thock,_ of Malachi’s boot hitting hers. She looked up from the notes she was making and smiled wryly. “You’re still doing it.”

Malachi smiled back. “It was an accident, I swear.”

“Uh huh.”

The library wasn’t very large, but it had accommodations for hundreds of books and was filled with ways to appreciate both the english language and the community that utilized the library. There were handmade posters with recommended books, new books, and activities for all ages. There were children’s reading areas with plush cushions and low kiddie tables and chairs. There were study areas, tables arranged in lines with four chairs each, some had computers and some didn’t.

That was where Malachi and Persephone were seated; her with books strewn around her, him with only two.

“You know, if you wanted to come here to flirt with me you could have just said so. Then I wouldn’t have shown up,” Persephone said with a laugh.

Malachi chuckled. “Maybe we could go somewhere else and flirt instead.”

Persephone smiled and went back to taking notes from her textbook.

Malachi re-read his copy of Lord of the Flies for a few moments before he got bored and decided to ask the question that had been bothering him since he arrived at her house earlier.

“Why do you come here to study?”

“Why?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s what a library is for, isn’t it?”

“Yeah… but you have a house. Why not study there if you don’t want anyone to bother you?”

She shrugged. “Normally no one bothers me.”

He nudged her foot with his. “Come on. Why bring all of this stuff here?”

She looked at him, then at the sea of books, papers, and office supplies around her. “It’s… nice to not be in an empty house.”

Malachi’s mouth opened in alarm. He thought he should change the subject.

“What are you studying?”

“Biology.”

“Do you like it or are you just trying to get a good grade?”

“Can’t it be both?’ Persephone answered without looking up.

Malachi vaguely wondered if he should leave.

“It’s not… ” Persephone started, Malachi’s sudden attention on her making her freeze. “I know my mom is always working to make sure we even _have_ a house, but it’s like… what’s the point if she’s never in it, you know?”

He nodded.

“I’m not ungrateful, but I also know I can’t convince her to stop working so much. I like being financially secure, but I also like having my mom around.”

He nodded again, slower this time.

Persephone went back to making notes. For about five minutes before she put her pencil down.

“I can’t concentrate.”

“Do you want me to leave?”

“No. But now I’m thinking about things and… I can’t concentrate on studying.”

“Mm… want to help me?” He brandished his book at her.

“I thought you finished it.”

“I did but now I’m having trouble with the paper. I don’t understand the themes.”

“Well… think of it in the sense of the characters and what they represent. Ralph represents civilization and humanity’s need take the chaos of life and turn it into something constructive. The other side of the coin, Jack, is humanity’s savage instinct, he’s barbaric and cruel and manipulates the younger boys.”

“So it’s like… is that ‘nature verses nurture’? I’ve heard people say that before but I don’t really know what it means.”

“Mmm… that’s more so the debate on if we’re born with our personality or if we develop it over time as we move through life. To explain in a succinct way.”

“Ah.”

“This is more the battle of civilization verses savagery. Should we do things for the benefit of the group? Or should we gratify our own desires and ‘fuck everyone else,’ you know?”

“I guess that explains why they want us to read it.”

“I mean, yeah. If you can get a bunch of teenagers to empathize with Ralph and dislike Jack because he gets some of the boys killed, that’s probably a good thing.” She laughed.

Someone across the room shushed them.

“Hmm…” Malachi thought for a moment.

Persephone went back to making notes from her Biology textbook, her mind less cluttered than before.

“So then… then the book is kind of like Ralph.”

She looked up. “How so?”

“Well… it’s that thing the teacher was talking about, an… ally…”

“Allegory?”

“Yeah. Where each character means something so the story means something.”

“Yeah,” it is.

“So the book is kind of like… trying to show us that we should prefer civilization over savagery because civilization keeps everyone alive and gets things done.”

“Yeah. Like if I just said screw it and didn’t do this biology studying, right? I just knocked all these books off the table and went outside and like, I don’t know, went and just played a ton of video games and ate a ton of junk food and just never came back and didn’t graduate, like… yeah that might be fun while I’m doing it but it would be so hard to get a job later without a high school diploma. And I’d have a bitch of a time trying to get into college.”

Malachi nodded at her explanation until she lost him at the last part. “You want to go to college?”

She nodded back. “Yeah. I want to make something of myself and be able to leave here at some point. At the very least, I just want to have one well-paying job and vacation time so I can actually enjoy my life.”

“Wow. And I was having a hard time figuring out what my extracurricular class was going to be,” he laughed.

“Well… which one seems interesting?”

“I was thinking maybe the auto classes? I like cars and fixing stuff so…”

Persephone smiled. “That’s a great idea. You should do something you enjoy doing.”

Malachi straightened up and his mood brightened. “Yeah, and I think that I could do it as a job and also work on my own stuff. You know, make money and do something I love, so it would be cool.”

“Yeah.”

A man who looked to be in his thirties walked over with a handful of books. Malachi could see from his name tag that he was called Daniel and that he worked there.

“Heyyy, Seph. How’s studying?”

“Hey Daniel. Pretty good.”

“Who’s this?”

“This is Malachi. He’s helping distract me.”

“Ahh,” a vocalization drawn out with a raised brow and a knowing smirk. “So, I have a couple books to sort, but then I have a good literary fact for you today.”

“Okay. We’ll be here.”

Daniel smiled and walked into one of the ‘Librarians Only’ areas with his books.

Malachi leaned in, “That’s the guy you told me about?”

“Yeah. We should work on our stuff quick before he gets back, he’ll blab for a while.”

Malachi did as advised and worked on his paper, while Persephone went back to her Biology notes.

After about fifteen minutes Daniel came back and sat at the table, a smug look on his face.

“So, are you ready for this one?”

Persephone closed her textbook on her notes. “Yes.”

“Charles Dickens?”

“Yes.”

“Hans Christian Anderson?”

“Yes.”

Malachi looked from Persephone to Daniel. “I don’t get it.”

“Just checking if you know who they are.”

Malachi didn’t but he wasn’t about to admit it. If he were being honest, he kind of wanted Daniel to go away. Not that he was jealous or anything – Daniel was obviously older than them and Persephone was clearly not interested in him in that way – but it was nice to talk to Persephone outside of the school cafeteria. He also wanted to talk about how they ended the night before.

That kiss had kept him up for most of the night, agonizing, wondering if he was insane for liking her as much as he already did, trying to talk himself out of it. Was he being too forward? Not forward enough? During the school week had heard one of the guys in the locker room tell another guy, “Dude, you should never let a girl know you like them because it gives them too much power.” He stood there on the other side of the lockers and listened as he asked his friend, “Dude, do you want her to have power over you?” and told him, “If a girl has power over you, you’re a goner.” But in all the explanation the guy had for his friend – minutes of meaningless sentences and statements that he said like they were irrefutable facts that made Malachi honestly wonder if maybe the guy disguised a hatred of women – he couldn’t figure out just _why_ telling a girl you liked them made you a goner, or what it even meant to be ‘a goner’. If being a goner was having a girl like you back, going on dates, talking about life and everything else, _and_ you got to make out and stuff, he didn’t really give a shit. He was more than happy to be a goner.

“Okay, so,” Daniel continued, “in 1847, Hans Christian Anderson went to England for the first time and went to the party of the Countess of Blessington.”

“That name is almost _too English_.”

“Right? It’s like a fake name. Anyway, it was one of those salon-type parties where authors would go to meet each other and talk about being authors, and he met Charles Dickens there. They both wrote about poor people and how hard it was to be poor during the industrial revolution, and Anderson loved Dickens’ work so he just _gushed_ when he met him.”

Persephone nodded.

“Anderson went home and they kept in touch for ten years and then Anderson went back to England again, to visit Dickens for a few days, and ended up staying at his house for _five weeks_.”

Persephone laughed. “Oh no.”

“ _Yeah_. Eventually he was bothering Dickens’ family so much that he kicked him out and ghosted him slowly and Anderson never knew why he didn’t answer his letters.”

“Aww, poor guy. I mean, you shouldn’t stay at someone’s house for over a month unless they ask you to, but he probably thought they were good friends.”

Daniel chuckled, “Yeah. At some point he was apparently crying in Dickens’ front yard because something he wrote got rejected. So obviously they wanted him to leave.” He stood. “Anyway, that’s my literary thing for today. I have more books to re-shelve.”

“That was pretty good, see you around.”

Malachi smiled as Daniel waved goodbye to them before picking up more books to put away. He turned to Persephone who was opening her textbook to continue her notes.

“That was pretty random.”

“Yeah, I think they always have to do with whatever he’s reading at the moment.”

“He didn’t stay around for that long.”

“Yeah… maybe because you’re here.”

Malachi wondered if he was blushing and if he should finally ask about the night before when Persephone opened her textbook and went back to her note-taking. He decided not to bother her and went back to his paper.

* * *

They stayed there until 4pm when Persephone’s stomach had finally growled loudly enough to make her admit that maybe she was hungry and had to go home to eat. She and Malachi walked back to her house.

After a few minutes he finally got up the courage to ask what had been bothering him all morning.

“So… are we going to talk about yesterday?”

“What about it?”

“That kiss.”

She smiled. “What about it?”

He smiled. “It was pretty great.”

“It was.”

“Maybe… we could do it again sometime?”

“Maybe.”

“Does this make us…” he gestured uselessly.

“’Make us’ what?” She mimicked his gesture.

“Are we dating?”

She stopped in her tracks. “Well…”

Malachi had a sudden sense of fear wash over him that he didn’t know how to control. He suddenly feared the answer and wished he hadn’t asked.

“We’ve only been on one date, so I guess after our second one, then we’ll be dating.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Because ‘dating’ implies multiple dates—”

He hadn’t meant to interrupt her, but suddenly his face was on hers and neither was speaking. Her bag of books slipped out of her hand and fell to the floor spilling the contents. His hands at her waist, he tightened his grip and lifted her up, her feet barely touching the ground. Both of them were dully aware of the books falling and though the back of Persephone’s brain yelled at her for possibly damaging the covers, the rest of her brain did not give a shit and continued kissing Malachi back.

After a few moments he pulled away, releasing her back to the ground. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me.”

She shook her head, smiling. “That’s okay.”

She stooped to pick up her books and he immediately followed suit and helped her.

“So, does this mean _you’re_ asking _me_ out?”

She laughed. “I suppose it does.”

Malachi smiled. “Can I walk you home?”

Persephone laughed again. “You _are_ walking me home, you goober.”

Malachi realized his mistake and smiled bashfully.

“Why do you do things like that?”

“Like what?”

“Asking me if you could walk me home while you already are?”

The books safely back in the bag where they belonged, Malachi took the bag out of her hand and shouldered it, continuing the direction they were walking.

“Um, I don’t know. Something about you makes my brain go all stupid and I just say whatever’s in my head.”

“That’s weird.”

He shrugged. He wasn’t sure what else to say, if he could control it and give off the appearance of being cool instead of a doofy teenaged boy, he would.

“But that seems like a _you_ thing.”

He smiled.

She took his hand with hers and interlaced her fingers in his, squeezing them with her own. They walked hand in hand all the way back to her house, leisurely strolling. The hand holding made Persephone forget she was even hungry. Once they had gotten to her house, Malachi walked her up the steps and handed her the bag.

“I hope you don’t mind if I don’t invite you in. There isn’t that much food in the fridge.”

“That’s okay. I’m sure my grandma is already making dinner and wondering where I am.”

“I’ll see you Monday.”

“Yeah.”

Malachi turned to walk back down the steps when Persephone stood on her toes and planted a kiss on his lips.

“See you then.”

Malachi stumbled back a moment and caught the railing. “Yeah. See you.”

* * *

Malachi pushed the door open and two of the dogs, Tiny and Bear, were the ones to crowd him and ‘inspect’ him upon his return to the house.

“Mal? That you?”

“Yeah, I’m back.”

He stood there as they sniffed his legs, and licked as his hands, two good boys who wanted to make sure their house was secure. After a couple seconds, Bear led the way into the kitchen while Tiny went back to looking out the window.

He walked behind Bear into the kitchen, where his grandma was stirring a pot of food while Leo stood next to her.

“Hey mama, what’s for dinner?” He asked and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

“Paella. Where were you all day? Not getting into trouble I hope.”

Malachi dropped his backpack on the floor and grabbed a piece of chicken from the pot and ate it. His grandmother swatted his hand away.

“I was at the library.”

She stopped stirring. “Since when do you go to the library?”

“That girl I went out with yesterday goes there to study and invited me.”

“A girl that can get my Mal to study? You should marry her,” she laughed and went back to stirring.

* * *

“Want to go to Bleeker’s again on Friday?”

Apple slices were on the menu that day and Persephone crunched on one as she thought.

“Yeah, I had fun last week. I’ll go again. Are there new bands?”

Mal attempted to answer but was interrupted by a kid with teal green glasses.

“Hi,” the kid said shyly. “Can I sit here?”

“It’s a free country,” Persephone asked as looked back at Malachi.

Before he could answer her question, the kid was talking again.

“I don’t mean to bother you—”

“You kind of are,” Malachi said flatly.

“–I know, I’m sorry. I just wanted to say thank you for saving my glasses on Friday.”

Persephone searched the kid’s face for a moment.

“Oh! I’m sorry,” he held out his hand, “I’m Alex. You saved my glasses from getting stepped on at the concert.

“I thought the frames looked familiar,” Persephone said and went back to eating.

Alex put his hand down. “Yeah, they’re the only ones I have so I wanted to say thank you for saving them. My dad would have killed me if they got broken.”

“No problem. That’s a nice jacket by the way.”

He looked at his jacket and smiled, adjusting the lapels. The jacket was covered in band patches and so covered in studs that it almost looked like armor instead of outerwear.

“Thanks I did all the studs and everything myself. Um, do you mind if I sit with you guys?”

“Aren’t you already?”

“I mean… permanently. I’m kind of being picked on and—”

Persephone put her hand on the table. “Say no more. You can sit with us. I’m Persephone, he’s Malachi.”

Malachi gave a small wave.

Alex smiled. “Cool. So what were you guys talking about?”

“I was just saying we should go to Bleeker’s again this Friday and was about to say what bands were playing when you interrupted me.”

“Oh, sorry.” Alex took his lunch out of his bag and started eating his sandwich. “So who’s playing?”

“Three locals again: The Martin Luther Things—”

Persephone had to stop from spitting out her milk. “The what?”

Malachi laughed at her reaction and handed her a napkin. “The Martin Luther Things. No explanation. I’m guessing we’ll find out when we get there.”

Alex laughed. “They’re a bunch of guys who wear black suits and zombie makeup. They’re all black. I mean… obviously…” Alex suddenly felt awkward due to Persephone’s darker and didn’t want to say anything stupid.

“That’s good,” Persephone said and laughed.

“Uh, yeah, they’re pretty good. I think their drummer is a girl.”

She laughed. “That’s magical. Go on.”

Malachi smiled. “Captain Twerk—”

“They’re a bunch of girls who all wear Star Trek uniforms when they play and their songs are all about space.”

“—and Bad Sex.”

“I’ve never seen them before.”

“Well I guess they know someone because they’re headlining.”

Alex shrugged and kept eating.

Persephone was inconsolable. “Captain _Twerk_? I love it!”

The laughing while eating sent her into a coughing fit, having swallowed her milk wrong and Malachi reached across the table and patted her on the back.

Alex put a hand on her back as well, the picture of concern. Once Persephone was done choking and was okay, he returned to the subject of weekend concerts.

“So… could I go with you guys?”

Persephone coughed the last of the milk out of her lungs. “Afraid you might lose your glasses again?”

Alex laughed quietly. “You guys just seem cool is all.”

“Tell you what,” Malachi interjected, “Make me a jacket like that and you can come with us.”

“Oh… they take a while to make. This took me like a month of working on it every day after school.”

Malachi looked at Persephone and rolled his eyes. “Fine, you can come with us anyway.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Word count: 2,654
> 
> Fandom: Riverdale
> 
> Characters: Malachi, OC (Woman), Archie, Betty, Veronica, Jughead, Cheryl, Toni, Penny
> 
> Pairings: Cannon show pairings (as of the end of season 2), Malachi/OC
> 
> Warnings: None for this chapter. The final smut vote has been tabulated and I promise the smut will happen eventually.
> 
> Note: Before you ask why Seph has the phone she does or why the band has their social media presence on the sites they do, please try to remember that she and Mal would have been in high school from about 2006-2010. These years are based off of Tommy Martinez’ age. (Since I’m pretty sure Malachi isn’t supposed to be a high school student in the show lol)

What Malachi felt could become a very comfortable routine – dinner at Big Al’s and then a concert at Bleeker’s – was again the plan for Friday. Once again, at Persephone’s behest, Malachi drove safely to the diner and to the venue. Once again, they were gifted with black X’s when they paid their way inside and once again they made their way over to the box Persephone watched the concert from the week before.

Malachi helped her onto the box and was rewarded by being pulled gently towards her by the lapel of his jacket and kissed. It was the quiet moments like these that he loved. Where – despite the venue being almost at full occupancy that week – there was no one else in the room but them.

A happy “Hey guys!” from behind Malachi interrupted their make out session. They both, slightly annoyed, looked to see who it was and relaxed when it was Alex.

Persephone smeared her thumb over Malachi’s lips to get her lipstick off him and then pulled a mirror out of her bag and fixed her lipstick.

“Hey Alex, what’s going on?” Malachi asked as he tried to get the rest off.

“Nothing much. I’m glad I found you guys, I wanted to introduce my friend to you, this is Violet. I told her about how you saved my glasses, Persephone, and she thought you were great.”

Persephone clapped the mirror closed and put it back in her bag. “Call me ‘Seph,’ less syllables. Nice to meet you, Violet.”

Alex looked from Violet to Persephone, “She– she likes your name.”

She rolled her eyes and smiled. “Mom was a bit of a Greek mythology nerd.”

Violet nodded. A lock of her mousey brown hair fell out from behind her ear and she tucked it back into place. Malachi didn’t really think she looked like she belonged at a punk show wearing an oversized tan sweater and what looked like baby blue trousers, but he figured people could dress however they want.

He echoed Persephone’s genial greeting with a “Hey.”

Violet smiled before turning away.

“The crowds pretty big tonight!” Alex said. “Someone told me that Bad Sex is pretty popular.”

Persephone smirked. “I can’t see why.”

“Oh!” Alex laughed. “Good one. I didn’t realize I did that.”

Malachi turned to Persephone and smiled, squeezing her knee.

Violet leaned over to Alex and whispered something, causing him to turn back to Malachi and Persephone.

“We’re going to get some drinks, want anything?”

Malachi shook his head no and turned to Persephone who also shook her head no but added, “I hope you’re not going to buy _real_ drinks.”

Alex showed her the back of his left hand and smiled. “Just some sodas.”

“We’re good. You go ahead.”

Violet followed Alex as he led the way to the bar, showing his hand to the bouncer who opened the rope for him. The bouncer signaled to the bartender who nodded and – as they were the only ones in the bar area at the time – shut off the lights illuminating the liquor shelves.

_Extreme_ , Malachi thought.

“I thought they’d never leave,” he said as he turned back to Persephone. She giggled as he got close and kissed her with a few quick kisses.

Persephone watched as Alex ordered Violet’s drink for her. “She was a little weird, don’t you think?”

Malachi turned and looked to the bar. Violet caught his eye and turned away. He turned back to Persephone. “Maybe I scare her?”

“You? Scary?”

He shrugged. “I’m a tall punk rock lookin’ dude, that has to scare some people.”

She rubbed her nose against his gently. “You’re an adorable boy is what _you_ are.”

“I could be scary.”

“I don’t think that’s it,” she laughed gently.

“Then what is it?”

She watched Alex animatedly talking to Violet, who mostly looked away. Her eyes strayed over to where she and Malachi were a few times before quickly darting back.

“She didn’t say anything for one thing.”

“Mmhm,” Malachi answered as he kissed her neck

“I don’t know. I just get a weird vibe from her.”

“Hey,” he took her face in his hands and touched his forehead to hers, “it’s probably nothing, okay? She’s probably just quiet and weird.”

Persephone kissed him before laughing into the kiss, breaking away to ask, “Do you think _she’ll_ join us at lunch too?”

Malachi chuckled. “At least she won’t be as talkative as our buddy Alex.”

She smiled. “He seems harmless but he does interrupt a lot.”

He rolled his eyes and nodded.

Alex and Violet were ushered out of the bar area, drinks in hand, just as the first band came out.

It was probably good that the music was loud, because that meant that the only one who heard Persephone howling with laughter at the costuming of The Martin Luther Things was Malachi. The seriousness of their black suits combined with the silliness of the zombie makeup and the celebration of self in their hair brushed out into afros of various sizes struck something in her that she couldn’t put into words, and that made her completely giddy. He stood smiling with his arm around her as she tightly gripped the collar of his jacket and cried with laughter into his shoulder. The music of the band was somewhere between Rage Against the Machine, Weird Al Yankovic, and a band formed in their parent’s basement a week ago who had thought of a name and costumes but never actually practiced. While their mastery of their instruments was questionable at best, their songs were filled with a rage and nihilistic humor that Malachi found earnestly amusing… and Persephone obviously felt the same way since she was inconsolable throughout the entire set and shouted ‘I love them!’ several times between bouts of laughter.

In the break between the first and second bands, Persephone asked Alex to save her seat so she could go talk to the band members of The Martin Luther Things. She grabbed Malachi by the hand and dragged him over to the band who was busy organizing their gear so it could be moved.

“Hey,” She said with a wave.

“Hey,” He pulled part of his zombie makeup off and grimaced at the sweat underneath it.

“You the singer?”

“Yeah, name’s Zak.”

“I’m Persephone, this is Malachi.”

Malachi gave a short wave.

“Anyway, I loved your set, Zak, you guys were great.”

“Hey, that’s good to hear. We have some music on iTunes if you want to buy it and help us out.”

“Really? I’ll check it out.”

“No doubt, no doubt,” he drank from his bottle of water and sighed.

Persephone and Malachi turned to look at what he sighed at, only to be greeted with a shirtless man who walked over with a, “Don’t buy their music.” Neither of them could figure out why his shirt was off as the venue – _thankfully_ – had working air conditioning. The only reason had to be to show off his body. He was almost as tall as Malachi and, admittedly, he was quite muscular but was covered in shitty stick-n-poke tattoos that took something away from his form. He pushed his shaggy brown hair out of his face and stared at Zak.

“Nice to see you, Damon,” Zak said sarcastically.

Damon got into Zak’s face and stood there for a moment. Malachi felt like it was a long moment, while Persephone was more than a little uncomfortable. After another beat, he made his way to the bar.

“What was _that_ , about? Persephone asked.

“Damon is the guitarist of Bad Sex, they’re pretty popular on iTunes. He’s… well let’s just say that some people don’t really deserve fame.”

Persephone and Malachi both nodded empathetically while Zak sighed and took another drink of water.

“So, can I help you guys out with anything else?”

“Got any merch?” Malachi asked.

“We have a couple shirts,” Zak put his water bottle down and led them over to a box near their gear. “What size do you wear?”

“It’s for her. A small please.”

Persephone looked at Malachi and narrowed her eyes. “How did you know I wear a small?”

“I actually didn’t, I just guessed. But now I do,” he ended by smiling a manic, shit-eating grin at her. Which earned him a playful punch in the arm.

Zak laughed. “Sure, man.” He dug through the box and pulled a shirt out. Screen printed across the chest were the band members looking like zombies in black suits, all with Martin Luther King’s facial hair and the band’s name underneath. “10 bucks.”

Malachi dug into his pockets, found his wallet, and paid him.

Zak folded up the shirt and gave it to him and took the money. “Pleasure doing business with ya. I have to clean up some shit, I’ll see you two around.” Zak smiled and left to clean up his band’s gear.

“Thanks, man.” Malachi said as he unfurled the shirt and draped it across Persephone’s torso. “You look cute.”

She smiled at him in a way that was somehow both wry and seductively attractive, one eyebrow raised and one corner of her mouth curled into a smirk. It made his heart go _thump_.

“You’re just putting this on me so you have an excuse to touch me.”

“I’m _obviously_ trying to make sure I got the right size.”

“Uh huh,” was her response, unimpressed.

He smoothed down the sides that hung at her waist and then pulled up the shoulders so the edges sat on her own shoulders. She giggled when he smoothed the hem down and let his fingers get caught in the hem of her skirt.

“Does it fit?”

He smiled. “Seems like it does.”

She laughed and took the shirt off and hooked it under the belt for safe keeping. “Let’s get back before the next band goes on,” she took his hand.

Malachi followed her as she weaved back through the crowd to where the boxes were, her smaller form more easily gliding between concert goers than his broad-shouldered self.  Alex greeted her with a smile and moved out of the way so she could resume her spot. Malachi hoisted her back onto the box. He then turned to Violet.

“Can you see?”

She shook her head and answered quietly, “Not really.”

“Would you like to sit up there too?”

She looked at Persephone who was somewhere between unimpressed and reluctant before she moved over so Violet could have the seat nearer to the stage.

Malachi smiled at Violet encouragingly.

“Okay,” she said and handed her drink to Alex.

Malachi lifted her up and she sat on the box and Alex handed her drink back to her. She smiled shyly before averting her attention to the stage where the next band was still setting up.

Malachi stood next to Persephone and kissed her on the forehead.

“So, did you talk to the singer of The Martin Luther Things?” Alex asked.

“Yeah,” Persephone said, “he was pretty nice. This other guy, though–”

She was interrupted when the opening chords of a Captain Twerk song started started. Their tone was totally different, hip hop mixed with industrial mixed with who even knew what else. All of the songs were Star Trek themed or at the very least, sci-fi and space themed but with a retro feel. The entire band was made up of girls, and all of them were wearing the original 1960s Star Trek miniskirt uniform. Everyone except the drummer took turns twerking.

Persephone leaned in to Malachi’s ear. “I feel like… these two bands are more punk than the bands from last week just because they’re more subversive and like…” she trailed off and thought for a moment.

“Weird?”

“Maybe, I don’t know. Like they’re trying to get at some kernel of truth no matter how strange it is and having a great time doing it.”

Malachi stared at her for a few moments and watched her react to the band.

Realizing she was being stared at, she looked at him. “What?”

He kissed her.

“What was that for?”

He shrugged. “You deserved it.”

She looked at him as he turned back to watch the band. Somewhat puzzled, she grinned and also turned her attention to the band.

* * *

Once the band was done playing, people began to mill about as they did when there was nothing interesting on the stage. Some got new drinks, some laughed loudly and shoved each other as they joked around, all were having a good time.

As Alex was excitedly explaining how ‘genius’ and ‘genre bending’ Captain Twerk’s combining of sci-fi tropes with hip-hop music was to a random person he seemed to have made friends with, Malachi noticed Damon next to the stage, looking at them. He didn’t want to turn to look at him head on for fear of provoking something, so he watched him out the corner of his eye. Although he couldn’t see the features of his face, he could clearly tell that his head was turned towards them and he was looking in their direction. _Staring_ more like. Malachi watched him as he pretended to be interested in what Alex was saying.

“… I just think they did a really great job taking that kind of pervasive sexuality from the 1960s outfits and turning it on its head and taking it to an extreme in a really satirical way that’s really refreshing and interesting at the same time while still being entertaining.” Alex said as he finished his thesis.

“Take a breath dude,” Persephone chimed in, “you sound like you’re about to pass out.”

Alex inhaled and laughed and the person he was talking to laughed as well. “Sorry, I just think it’s really exciting when someone does something new.”

Persephone smiled and turned her attention to Violet. “Did you like it?”

“Yes. They were fun.” She answered quietly and looked into her drink.

Persephone nodded.

Damon finally stopped looking in their direction when the singer of the band called him over, something to do with the gear as they started looking at an amp and fiddling with the controls.

Alex went on and on about how much he liked the bands so far for a few more minutes until the last preparations of Bad Sex caused everyone’s attention to shift back to the stage. When the band started playing, Malachi wondered how they were the headlining band when their music seemed – to him – to just be an unimaginative rehash of music that had been made before. Strangely though, the crowd seemed more excited for them than the other two bands, he guessed because of the larger iTunes presence that Zak mentioned earlier.

“I’ve heard these guys have iTunes, Myspace, Facebook, LiveJournal, YouTube, Twitter, you name it, they have it. They even their own website, and they have their music and show dates on all of it.” Alex turned and shouted to his friends. “I think their guitarist is new though.”

There it was. They were everywhere on social media. Malachi looked from him and back to the band. Damon was swaggering around the stage and making lewd motions at the girls at near the front of the stage who responded with happy screams. He figured he knew what Zak had meant when he said he didn’t deserve fame.”

Persephone touched Malachi’s arm to get his attention.

“Kind of boring, don’t you think? They seem like a lot of punk bands from the late 90s.”

He nodded.

She took her phone out of her pocket, a pink Motorola razr, and looked at what she could of the internet and her twitter as she resigned herself to boredom until the set ended. Malachi, also bored, peered over her shoulder as she scrolled through her twitter, and they laughed together at the tweets of the funny people she followed and ignored the last band.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Week three is week 3.
> 
> [Note: I have no idea how I didn't post this two weeks ago, sorry.]

Alex didn’t have much to say about or to the last band, but he stuck around to talk to the members of the first two bands. He showered then with complements and asked them about how they thought of their concepts and wrote their songs. Violet trailed behind him not saying much and smiling shyly. This still struck Persephone as odd although Malachi found nothing strange about it. He was more confused by Alex’s ability to make friends with every single person he met; and he seemed to be making genuine connections since every person he spoke to said goodbye to him before they left for the night.

Malachi and Persephone said their goodbyes and made their way back to Malachi’s car, holding hands and enjoying the quiet of the summer night around them.

This Friday was like last Friday; the warm day having given way to the cooler night, the day’s humidity barely hanging in the air. Dark yet clear, there was something about the coolness and stillness that made one’s skin yearn to feel the skin of another, the contact a welcome flush of heat. As if the night itself was designed to stoke desire.

“Honeysuckle,” Persephone said and pointed at a plant that was growing in and over a chain-link fence next to the sidewalk.

Malachi smiled. “You know so many things.”

She laughed quietly. “We used to have it near my old house too. It’s not that special, it’ll grow anywhere there’s a fence,” she walked over and smelled the flowers.

He watched her indulge before doing the same. “Smells like warm honey.”

“Hence the name,” she said as she smiled and tugged his hand so they could keep making their way to the car.

He didn’t give.

“Are you okay?” Her expression turned from wistful romance to concern. “Are you allergic?”

Malachi let go of her hand and turned towards her. He shoved his hands into his jacket pockets and took something small out, holding it in his fist.

“…I” He dropped to the floor, on one knee.

Her look of concern morphed to shock as she realized just what was happening. “Malachi what are you doing?” Spilled out of her lips in a near panic.

“I promised myself I would do this.”

“Woah, what?” She held her hands up to stop him.

He held out a ring. A small pink pearl bookended by round garnet cabochons.

“Oh my god, what are you doing?” She whispered.

“I’m asking you to marry me.”

“Uh…” her eyes widened with a shock that she didn’t know how to hide. “Mal… we’re teenagers. Even if we tried to get married we wouldn’t be able to without our parents okaying it.”

“Hear me out. I know that we haven’t known each other that long—”

“Three weeks. We’ve known each other for three weeks.”

“—I know, I know, and I know we’re too young… but I’m really serious about you—”

“I’m serious about you too but we don’t need to get married over it.”

Malachi honestly hadn’t put much thought into what he thought Persephone’s reaction would be. When  he walked past the jewelry store during the week saw the ring, when he went inside the store to buy it, when he felt its form in his jacket pocket any time his hand happened to be in it all night, he hadn’t once thought of what her reaction might be.

“Mal, I’m really flattered but—”

“Are you going to break up with me?” Now the look of horror had been transferred to his face.

“No, oh my god, no. I just don’t think we should get married when we’re fifteen and sixteen.”

“Then maybe…”

“Mal, could you please stand up? You’re making me so nervous.”

“Sorry.” He stood and looked at the ring for a moment. “Then maybe this ring doesn’t mean that we’ll get married _now_ , but that we’ll stay together all through high school.  We’ll work on our relationship when it needs work, and talk to each other, and then… maybe after high school we can get married.”

Persephone laughed and held his face in her hands. “So is it a promise ring?”

“Yeah,” he smiled, “I’ll promise you that I will try to be the person you need me to be, and… you could promise the same.” His eyes searched her face, her beautiful face that he couldn’t bear to be without; he had seen it for less than a month but had seen it so steadily that it was his new normal. Not seeing her would feel like a hole was carved into his life. Her glittering green eyes, her full lips which were always smirking or smiling or pressed up against his own. Her cheeks that he loved to brush a thumb against when they sat together talking quietly. He couldn’t bear the be without her brain, so smart and so loaded with random facts and always able to keep a conversation interesting. And when she wasn’t speaking, he couldn’t bear to be without her silence. “You are the one thing in my life I am _so_ sure about… the one person I want to make sure is always around.”

Persephone started to laugh.

“Or you could make a new promise, I don’t know… Why are you laughing?”

She smiled, teary-eyed. “Just kiss me, you beautiful idiot.”

Malachi’s confusion turned to delight and he couldn’t help but chuckle as he took her face in his hands. He kissed her softly, lips meeting and parting and meeting again. Their kiss had nothing awkward or nervous about it but instead all the familiarity of two people who, in such a short period of time, had grown so close that each was well on their way to being the other’s ‘other half.’ It was a kiss filled with promise, possibly, and hope for the future.

Warm fingers made trails of searing heat as his hands strayed to her waist, wrapping her up in his arms and lifting her off the ground in elation. She stood on her toes as she always did, too short for his height, her soft lips meeting his own in a slow and unhurried way. Her warm hands pressed against the back of his head trying to pull him closer, while he pressed her hips closer to his own.

It was only a sudden realization that pulled them apart.

“So… is that a yes?”

“If you keep your promise… and if you don’t do something to piss me off, we can get married when we graduate.”

“What would piss you off?”

She narrowed her eyes in mock intensity, “I’ll let you know when it happens,” and laughed.

“So… we’re going to get married when we graduate?”

“Sure.”

His smile broadened with excitement. “Really?”

“Why not?” she laughed.

He touched his forehead to hers before scooping her up in a hug and spinning, swinging her around as he did so.

They spun and laughed until he lost his balance and they fell against the fence and into the honeysuckle plant. Plush leaves and sugar scented flowers crowded them as they kept laughing. They exchanged kisses and smiles for a few moments before the position was uncomfortable and they finally pulled themselves out of the plant. Persephone dusted the pollen off her clothes and Malachi picked a leaf out of her hair.

“You never gave me the ring.”

“Oh!” Forgetting that nervousness and fear of dropping the precious artefact had subconsciously balled his hand into a fist, he opened his hand and held the ring up for her to see. “Should I put it on you?”

She considered this for a moment. “I guess I shouldn’t wear it on my left ring finger because then people will ask questions, so put it on the right one.”

Malachi took her hand gently and slid the ring onto her ring finger on her right hand. Persephone looked at it curiously.

“How did you get the right size?”

“Honestly it was a lucky guess,” he laughed.

She looked at the stones, angling them so she could see them under the street lamp. “Did someone help you pick it out?”

“No… I saw it and thought of you. It matched you perfectly for some reason. As if you needed to have it or something.”

She smiled. “You are just so weird.”

He moved closer and took her hand, letting the light from the streetlamp dance across the gemstones.

“The pearl, a stone associated with purity but pink, a color associated with innocence. The garnets… the word comes from the pomegranate, associated with the goddess you’re named after, the queen of the dead. It reminded me of you. As if you’re innocent but dangerous at the same time. Like a goddess of spring flowers and the dead.”

Persephone searched her eyes for she knew not what. “How did you know all that?”

“The pearl thing I remembered from a documentary my grandma watched a while ago, the garnet thing I looked up after we met. I didn’t know much about the goddess Persephone and felt I should know more.”

She smirked. “You could have just asked.”

He smiled, “I wanted to impress you.”

She looked at the ring again, “Well, consider me impressed.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New school year... new friends?

The rest of their freshman year was filled with concerts at Bleeker’s, lunch table conversations, and the odd date to a nearby free attraction such as the day they went to the museum or their many picnic trips to the riverside. Alex continued to be at a level just barely above ‘you’re annoying, please go away’ and so they never told him to leave their lunch table. He was pleasant enough – always knowing what bands were playing that week and always having a good word to say about anyone they met during their weekend concerts – but his exuberance could make being around him tiring. Neither Malachi nor Persephone were the perkiest of people. He occasionally invited random people to sit at their table with them, one or two people, which they weren’t the biggest fan of. They enjoyed the quiet of just being with each other and not having to deal with a class for forty-five minutes out of the day.

Though, if Malachi were listing all his favorite things of their first year of high school, he would probably have put ‘so many make out sessions’ right under ‘this amazing girl, who I’m actually amazed even lets me be near her.’ 

Their relationship had been running smoothly and so were their classes; Malachi had finally picked Automechanics for his elective while Persephone had decided to double down on her Biology trajectory and take the Ecology AP class she had her eye on.

Somehow, perhaps by some strange accident involving a zero that should have been a one or perhaps divine fortunate of the scheduling gods smiling upon them, they still had English and lunch together. Their English class was right before lunch, allowing them a solid block of time together throughout the day. Malachi couldn’t tell if he preferred that or having a few classes between, but at least they still had classes together.

“But won’t it look bad on your transcript when you try to get into college?” Malachi asked as they walked down the hall hand in hand. “It’s just regular English. And I think we might be one of the ‘bad’ classes. It’s in the basement for christssakes.”

“I mean, yeah, it probably looks bad, but I if can destroy the reading and writing sections of the SAT, I think I’ll still have a pretty good chance of a good college. Or any.”

Malachi smiled. He tightened his grip on her hand and rubbed his thumb across the band of the ring he gave her the year before. He then brought her hand up to his lips and kissed it. “I think we both know you’re going to murder it. If I’m there to take it, I’ll have to be the one to call 911.”

Persephone smiled. “You could take it just to see how you do. It’d be easier than not taking it and then finding a place to take it later when you have to pay.”

Malachi shrugged as they rounded the corner to the cafeteria doors and let go of her hand so he could open the door for her. They both walked in, discovering that their usual table was now populated with what seemed to be a good portion of the students in that lunch period.

“Wow…” Malachi intoned flatly while Persephone mumbled an annoyed “Dicks,” under her breath and made her way to the lunch line.

They stood on the line, each wondering how their table could be entirely full this semester when it was completely empty the year before but saying nothing to each other as they collected their food choices and paid. Once they had their lunch, they scanned the room for available seating and elected to sit at one of the suspiciously empty tables in the middle of the room. There was something about being in the direct center of everything that bothered the both of them, as if they were on display and couldn’t have the same kind of privacy they had before.

They had been sitting for less than five minutes when people from their old table started to sit around them having brought all their stuff with them.

“Woah,” Persephone said as she looked around, “What the fuck is happening?”

“Wait! Guys! Guys!” said a voice that both recognized as being Alex’s, which was confirmed when he pushed his way through the crowd. “Go back to the other table, I got it.”

“Friends of yours?” Persephone asked as the people around them gathered up their stuff and went back to their old table.

“Hey Alex,” Malachi added, “haven’t seen you in a while.”

Persephone furrowed her brow at his obvious sarcasm, they had seen him almost every Friday and Saturday throughout the summer at Bleeker’s and even ran into him during one of their dates, and had in fact seen him the Saturday before the school year started. Alex was not a guy who was afraid to make himself into a third wheel.

“Hey. How come you’re not at our usual table?”

_Our usual table_ , Malachi corrected internally, thinking only of himself and Persephone.

“Come sit with us.” He smiled.

Persephone narrowed her eyes. “Us?”

“Yeah, the gang’s all here,” he said, way too happily for either of them. “Come on,” he said as he beckoned to them to follow him to the table.

They shrugged at each other and stood, following him.

“That’s David, Mallory, Kenny, Maria, Stevie…”

Alex named just about every person at the table but Persephone and Malachi were both fairly certain they wouldn’t remember any of their names later. Most of them seemed to be sophomores and freshmen, but Malachi thought he noticed one or two juniors in the bunch.

“…and, of course, you guys remember Violet.”

Violet, who Persephone hadn’t recognized, waved a small wave at them.

Alex then turned to the group, “Guys, this is Malachi and Persephone.”

Everyone said hi, a couple people whooped in celebration.

“Uh…” Malachi looked at Persephone who he knew well enough to realize that she was massively uncomfortable and trying to hide it with a passive expression. “Nice to meet all of you,” he offered.

“Do you guys mind if we have the window seat?” Persephone asked, prompting a few people at the end of the table next to the window to graciously stand and move to the other end.

Once they had sat, Persephone leaned in to Malachi so they could freak out together in whispers.

“What the fuck?”

“I have no idea, I have no idea.”

“Did he tell you about this?”

“No.”

“He didn’t tell me about this.”

“I know, because you would have told me about it.”

“What does he think he’s doing?”

“I have no idea. I know he makes _all the friends_ but I didn’t think it was this bad.”

Persephone leaned back with a sigh and looked down the table at the sheer amount of people sitting at it. She looked at all the faces, people whose names she had already forgotten, and saw Violet. She watched as she flirted with who she thought was Stevie, but wasn’t sure because he was only pointed out to her once.

“Mal?”

“Yeah?” he responded with a full mouth as he had started eating his food during Persephone’s moment of reflection.

“Did you notice Violet before we walked over?”

“No, why?”

“She looks totally different from Saturday, right?”

Mal looked over, just now realizing that her hair was different. “Yeah, she does.”

“She has my haircut.”

“She uh… she kind of does.”

“Don’t you think it’s a little weird that Violet suddenly has my haircut? It’s not even a little bit like my hair, it’s like it was purposefully made to look like mine.”

Malachi looked at Persephone and then Violet, comparing their hair. “It looks like the same haircut… but she just has her regular hair color so it doesn’t look _exactly_ the same.”

“I suppose…” Persephone narrowed her eyes, thinking. “Whatever, I was thinking of growing it out anyway.”

“Yeah?”

She nodded as she ate some of her lunch.

“Are you going to keep the green?”

“I don’t know yet. I suppose I don’t have much time before I have to dye it a natural color so people take me seriously. I might as well keep having fun until then.”

“Fuck ‘em.”

“Mal…” Persephone said disapprovingly.

“I know, but still, fuck ‘em. We should be able to look like however we want to look and not be judged.”

“I know, and you’re right, but there’s too many old fucks who don’t feel the same way and don’t want to listen.”

Malachi chewed his food thoughtfully before answering, “It’s too bad we have to listen to their rules.”

Persephone nodded.

“We should just make… like a hippie commune and run away from everyone.”

“Get away from the crowd?” she asked with a raised eyebrow as she gestured to the people at their table.

Malachi smiled. “Maybe.”

Just then a girl, her hair shaved into a Chelsea with the bangs dyed pink and short blond stubble from a few days’ worth of growth shoved the person next to Persephone over and sat next to her.

“Sorry I’m late, I’m Sophie. I told Alex I would help get everyone together for the first day but I was busy getting chewed out in my math class. If only Mr. Fleischmann were hotter.” She laughed as she elbowed Persephone in jest.

Persephone and Malachi looked at each other with wide eyes for a moment before speaking at the same time, “I’m sorry…” “What?”

“Oh, sorry. I’m Sophie,” she held out her hand and reached for and shook Persephone’s hand and then Malachi’s.

Both of them were deeply confused.

“Alex made me like, his little second in command to help him get everyone together like this. I was supposed to keep everyone here so he could find you guys and like, lead you in and introduce you and all of us.”

“I’m sorry,” Persephone said again and looked at Malachi before turning back to Sophie. “But I don’t understand what’s happening.”

“Oh! This is like,” Sophie looked around for a second before leaning in, “Alex talks about you guys, like a lot, and this is everyone who’s like… your fans.”

“Why would we have fans?” Malachi asked. “We don’t do anything.”

“Yeah.” Persephone echoed, “Am I really great at studying or something?”

“If you are, that’s good,” Sophie pointed at her as she answered, “not many people know how to study, it’s a good skill to have.”

Persephone shot another confused glance to Malachi and for a moment considered getting up and leaving.

“But Alex loves you guys, you’re like his personal idols, he thinks you’re the coolest. I think he wanted to get everyone else who liked you together as well to show you how appreciated you are.”

“I think we accidentally’ed a cult,” Malachi responded as he swallowed his food.

“ _We_ didn’t even make it, Alex did.” Persephone corrected.

“Hey,” he said as he touched her hand with a laugh, “Does that make us gods?”

Persephone looked at him with disdain, “Please no. I couldn’t do the public speaking class in sixth grade, I don’t want a bunch of people following me around and hanging on my every word.”

“We could put you on one of those little beds and fan you as we carry you around,” Malachi said and dodged as she laughed and tried to hit him.

Sophie laughed. “Well, it’s not just about you guys. This is also everyone he’s met going to concerts at Bleeker’s. Like a little…” she waved a hand as she searched for the right words, “local music scene club… thing.”

Persephone sighed and ate her food.

“You miss lunch last year?” Malachi asked. Under the table, he gently touched his foot to hers in reassurance.

“Yes… I miss the quiet. No offense, Sophie, you seem nice but there’s just too many people at this table.”

“Hey, I get it man, if three is a crowd this is a fucking mob.” She looked down the table a moment before turning back. “But hey, if you guys want to sit somewhere else I’m sure I can convince Alex to let the idea go.”

“You’d do that?” Persephone asked.

“Yeah, when Alex told me some random stranger saved his glasses at a show I kept hoping to run into you at Bleeker’s but missed you every time. I’ve been waiting to talk to you guys all summer but I know you’re still just people,” she laughed. “If you guys want to get up and leave right now, I’ll talk to him.”

Malachi inclined his head towards Persephone, silently asking her opinion.

“I guess…” she trailed off as she thought. “We could sit here for now and if it’s too loud or whatever, we could get up and leave.”

“You sure?” Sophie asked.

“Yeah, it’s fine.”

“Okay. Can you save my seat? I’m going to go grab lunch.”

“Sure.”

Once she was gone Malachi asked quietly, “I thought you hated this?”

“I do but like… all these people are sitting here because of us. That’s so weird.”

He smiled. “So what, you _like_ the idea of people idolizing you?”

She sighed. “Probably not, but it would be mean to leave when they all wanted to see us. Plus, Sophie seems cool. And… I guess Alex means well.”

“I don’t get why he’s so in love with you, all you did is save his glasses.”

“Uh, he thinks we’re both amazing. He’s in love with _us_.”

“Yeah, that makes even less sense.”

Persephone picked at her food as she thought. “He’s so weird.”

“He really is.”

A few minutes later, Sophie appeared again with a tray of food.

“Thanks for saving my seat.”

“Sophie—” Malachi started.

“Please, call me Soph, most people do.”

Malachi looked at Persephone. “Seph and Soph, huh?”

Persephone sighed.

“Heyyy!” Sophie laughed as she held up some ketchup covered fries in a motion like she was toasting a drink and popped them into her mouth. “Actually,” she turned to Persephone, “why do you go by ‘Seph’? Wouldn’t ‘Persey’ or something make more sense?”

“’Seph’ sounds like ‘Steph’ and seems more like a normal name.”

“Ah… You know what, just call me Sophie. It’ll make it less confusing.”

“Thanks.”

“What were you going to ask?”

“Well, what did Alex tell all these people that they wanted to sit at our table with us? I think I recognize a few people from Bleeker’s, but not everyone.”

She shrugged as she ate her food. “About the glasses thing, mostly. And just that you guys are cool and nice.”

“Then…” Persephone started. “Why haven’t any of these people come up to us to talk to us before now? And you’re the only one who even has talked to us so far.”

She shrugged again. “I don’t know, man, when I want to talk to someone, I just talk to them. Maybe they’re intimidated.”

“Why?” Persephone asked before Malachi could suggest that maybe he was intimidating.

“Well, Alex told everyone you’re really smart, and I mean, like, just look at Malachi.”

Malachi smiled. He rolled his shoulders back, they had widened since the year before and he was quite happy with how much bigger it made him look, especially when he was wearing a leather jacket or his studded vest. Being a year older than the other sophomores, he appeared to be maturing faster than everyone else in their grade, baby fat finally giving way to muscle and stubble beginning to grow from his chin.

“Really?” He asked.

“Yeah, you’re a tall dude, that has to be intimidating.”

Malachi smiled wildly at Persephone, the point he had made nearly a year ago finally proven.

He felt vindicated, he rolled her eyes at him.

“Now you’ve inflated his ego,” she said to Sophie as she ate her own food and tried to ignore his pointed stare.

Sophie laughed. “I mean, I’m just guessing, I have no idea. Like I said, when I want to talk to someone, I just go and talk to them.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even children know to chew their food.

September and well into October was occupied with Malachi and Persephone getting used to the idea of having a crowd of people who all wanted their opinions. The concept was still strange to both of them, to go from being in charge of just their own lives to suddenly – also – having to make decisions for the lives of others. Persephone thought this was at the group’s own risk because, as she said to Malachi and Sophie in hushed tones on the lunch line one day hoping no one from their table was around since she still couldn’t remember most of their names, “What the hell do a couple of teenagers know about being teenagers that we could even give an—an—” Malachi placed his hand on her lower back as she tried to grasp at her own thoughts, “an _iota_ of an idea of what to do in life? They think they don’t know, but why the hell would _we_ know? They think _they’re_ new here and need help? _I’m_ new here and need help. _I_ barely know what I’m doing.”

“That’s a lie,” Malachi fired back. “You know you’re going to take the S.A.T., you know you’re going to college—”

“I haven’t even picked one yet.”

“So? Despite that you still know where your grades need to be in order to go--”

“It’s like a _vague_ idea.”

Sophie looked back and forth as they lobbed the conversation at each other like a tennis match.

“It’s still more of an idea than anyone else at that table has. Face it, kid, you’re the adult around here.”

Persephone sighed, visibly deflating, as she looked to the table. More than one of the students seated there, all of them half looked like a Hot Topic exploded on them; bright colors and punky studs and leather or faux leather. She smiled and waved back, wondering how much of it was gotten with a five-finger-discount and how much of it was bought by understanding parents. She paid for her lunch and stood awkwardly as she waited for Malachi and Sophie to do the same.

“And what about you, Mal? Are you an adult?”

He chuckled. “Liam, the guy with the leather jacket,” he gestured as best he could while he held his lunch tray, “he’s in Auto with me. He’s already asked me for relationship advice. _Twice_.”

“ _Dude_ , Persephone whispered as they got closer to the table, “I got asked for relationship advice by three of the girls already.”

Malachi crossed his eyes, making Persephone laugh. “I don’t know, baby. I think we might both be adults.”

“You guys _really_ don’t get it, do you?” Sophie asked as she cruised past them chuckling.

“Get what?” They answered in tandem.

She stopped in front of them, stopping them as well, the last moment they would have for a private conversation until after lunch was over. “You’re everyone’s favorite couple, the relationship _dream_. You’re ‘ _Bae Goals_.’”

“Bagels?” Malachi asked.

“No,” Sophie laughed, “You guy’s are what everyone wants, the relationship everyone wants to have.”

“I think you’re putting way too much into this,” Persephone protested.

She shook her head. “A smart girl with a sick fashion sense dating a guy who looks like a ‘bad boy’ but who is actually super sweet? You two are what everybody wants.” And with that, she walked over to the table, saying ‘Hi’ to someone as she sat down.

Malachi and Persephone were… _flummoxed_. Not a word Malachi would have used, mostly because he didn’t know it, but Persephone would have. Though, maybe not out loud, she found herself suddenly wondering how such a word would color people’s opinion of her ‘sick fashion sense’. For his part, Malachi was wondering if he was really as sweet as he was told he was. Both of them wondered if they were really some kind of dream for a very brief moment, before brushing the thought aside and grounding themselves in reality.

The sudden gravity of the situation, novel and confusing as it was, hit them at precisely the same moment. Truly, having a group of people who deferred to them was foreign and just plain _weird_ , but maybe Persephone’s need to help people she didn’t know, and Malachi’s inherent sweetness was something that the people around them needed. Whether this was true or not was something that neither of them could answer, but the earnestness in the faces of the people waving them over to the table was enough to make both of them think that maybe it was.

Malachi gestured towards the table, “After you, I guess.”

Persephone looked at him severely before making her way to the table and sitting next to Sophie, who greeted her as if the conversation didn’t happen.

“So,” she said, “are you guys going to Bleeker’s this Friday?”

“Of course,” Persephone answered as she busied herself with freeing her spork and napkin combo from its plastic encasement.

“That’s a silly question,” Malachi echoed as he corralled his long legs under the table, across from his girlfriend. “I think we only missed one or two shows since we started going.”

“Two.” Persephone answered.

“Both because you had to study,” he said and inclined his head towards her.

“You could have gone without me,” she smiled back.

“What? And be bored?”

Both heard the quiet wistful sighs of two of the girls sitting near them. Malachi couldn’t help but smile at Persephone knowingly as she rolled her eyes.

“ _Jesus_ ” she said under her breath so only he could hear.

“Why?” Malachi turned to Sophie and asked. “You want us to help you start a mosh pit?”

Sophie laughed and shook her head, “No, I’ve just never seen you guys there. It’d be the first time.”

Persephone smiled as she ate her lunch. “That’s true, I’m not sure how we never ran into each other.”

“Well,” Sophie said as she tilted her head in thought and then said matter-of-factly, “not all of us are free every Friday. Some of us have to work on the weekends.”

“That sucks,” Persephone said as Sophie nodded in affirmation. “Where do you work?”

“Just a little store. Like a hole in the wall kind of place.”

“…What do they sell?”

“Umm…” Sophie smiled a quiet smile as she thought, the length of time that she needed to think about what she sold at her job making Persephone look to Malachi who shrugged. She shrugged, “Personal items.”

Malachi nodded as he chewed his food before answering, “Cagey.”

Sophie nodded with a laugh. “You know what, it’d just be easier if you guys visited me one day.”

“You want us to visit but you won’t even tell us what you sell? I totally want to go there,” Persephone ended sarcastically.

“I know, I know,” Sophie laughed. “It’s not anything illegal. It’s not drugs, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Well, now I’m thinking that,” Malachi quipped.

Sophie laughed again. “You know what, I’ve already dug my grave so I’m just going to stop there.” She concerned herself with the food on her tray and tried – pointedly – to pretend they weren’t there.

Persephone chuckled as she ate her own food, while Malachi laughed and shook his head.

“I don’t think we can sit at this table anymore,” he said to Persephone, capturing her attention, “it’s filled with delinquents.”

Sophie laughed, nearly choking on her food.

“But to answer your question, person-who-is-no-longer-paying-attention-to-us: Yes. We’re going to be at Bleeker’s on Friday.”

Sophie swallowed her food hard, dispelling the last of her body’s reaction to the almost inhalation of hamburger meat into her windpipe. “Good, because I will also be there.”

“And if it just so happens that we run into each other, so much the better.” Persephone said with a shrug.

Sophie nodded emphatically.

A thought intruded into Malachi’s mind which made him perk up like someone was calling his name and then look down the length of the table.

“You okay?” Persephone asked with a wry smile while Sophie looked down the table out of curiosity.

“I just realized we haven’t seen Alex in the past couple of weeks.”

Persephone’s smile dropped. “Oh my god, do you think he’s dead? He’d have to be dead not to be everywhere we turn.”

Sophie nodded, “I think I agree. And you know what, come to think of it, I haven’t seen him all day.”

“Can you text him?” Malachi asked, not having a phone himself.

“Of course,” Persephone responded as she wiped her hands off on her napkin, pulled her phone out of her bag, and turned it on.

“You keep your phone off all day?” Sophie asked through a mouthful of food.

“I—yeah. It’s hard to concentrate when I know it’s on and possibly a distraction during class.”

“You must be every parent’s wet dream.”

Persephone rolled her eyes.

“No, seriously. You’re always studying, you even keep your phone off during class, If I didn’t know better I’d think you were a narc.”

“What am I going to narc on?” Came Persephone’s unimpressed answer as she located Alex’s phone number and texted him.

“True. We haven’t actually done anything.” Sophie sighed. “If it weren’t for the clothes I’d totally think you were a Drew Barrymore Never Been Kissed deal though. I bet your dad hates that you go out like that,” she added with a victorious dip of her fry into some ketchup and tossed it into her mouth.

“Uh…” Persephone looked to Malachi and then back to Sophie, “my dad’s sorta… dead.”

Sophie would have gasped had she not had food in her mouth, instead she chocked on her fry.

Persephone patted her on the back, her face the picture of motherly concern for a child who hasn’t yet learned to chew their food. “Are you alright?”

Other members of the informal lunch club turned to see what was happening, several of them standing and gathering around her.

“Yes!—I’m—fine--!” Sophie unsuccessfully tried to answer as she continued to cough.

Malachi grabbed the water bottle off her tray and opened it, handing it to her.

“Than—” she responded as she took it, cut off by her continued coughing.

“Drink it,” he ordered.

Sophie suppressed her coughing as best she could for a moment and gulped a mouthful of water. She coughed again, finally dislodging the particle of fry and spat it onto her tray. “Ugh, gross.”

“Are you alright?” Persephone asked again.

“Yeah, thanks.”

The gathered students went back to their seats. Some patted Sophie reassuringly on the back, while one or two patted Persephone for helping her. Persephone gave a half-hearted smile and gently waved them away.

“Your eyes are totally red,” Malachi observed.

“Did I break a blood vessel?” She asked and opened her eyes wide so he could check.

“Looks fine.”

“Good. I read somewhere that the capillaries in your eyes pop really easily.” She gulped another mouthful of water hard and then turned to Persephone, “So, anyway, I’m _so sorry_ Seph, I didn’t know. I’m so sorry.”

Persephone shrugged and shook her head. “It’s not like I advertise it, it’s not anything you could have known.”

“Still, I should stop being such a loudmouth shit.”

“You are kind of a loudmouth,” Malachi agreed wryly.

Sophie smiled. “Oh, I _know_ I am. But at least I can admit it.”

Persephone smiled. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I’m still sorry though.”

They sat in silence for a moment. Sophie feeling too shitty about what she had possibly brought up to say anything, Persephone trying to figure out a way to let Sophie know that she didn’t have to worry about it and coming up with nothing, and Malachi wondering what he should do to rectify the situation and having no ideas. They all seemed to take turns poking at their food, trying to eat in a way that seemed ‘natural’ or looking around the room while still looking at the other two of their group out of the corner of their eye before Sophie finally made an attempt at breaking the silence.

“So, uhh… do either of you have a job?”

Persephone and Malachi both shook their heads no.

“Ah,” she responded, attempt at rolling back the clock failed.

Persephone watched her out the corner of her eye for a moment.

“I’m not sure how my mom would feel about me having a job.”

“Oh?” Sophie said as the looked back at her, glad to hear that she couldn’t make the mistake she had just made a second time.

“Yeah,” she said as she looked to Malachi as well, inviting him to join the conversation. “She’s kind of a workaholic, but I’m not sure if she’d see it as a good thing or as me being neglectful of my studies.”

“Ah.”

“I think my grandma might feel the same way.”

“You live with your grandma?”

“Yeah. She’s not very hard on me when it comes to grades, but I think if it seemed like I might choose work over school, she’d kill me.” He answered with a laugh.

Persephone smiled. A realization came to her, burrowing under her skin with the undulating motion of a centipede, hundreds of legs moving in waves as it crawled through her. But it was a realization that she didn’t want to bring up in front of other people. It could wait until later.

Her phone buzzed against the table, jarring the thought from her mind.

“Is that Alex?” Malachi asked.

“Yeah,” Persephone answered as she read his name on the small notification screen on the outside of the phone before flipping it open.

Malachi and Sophie waited as she read the text, furrowing her brow in response.

“I asked him if he was at school today and he said ‘No, but I’ll see you at Bleeker’s on Friday.’”

Malachi’s face took on the same expression and, in confusion, he opened his hands as if begging for a real explanation, flexing his fingers once.

Persephone looked at him and mimicked the gesture with her free hand.

“…What does that mean?”

“I guess he’s not coming in for the rest of the week?” Sophie offered.

“That seems really unlike him,” Persephone added. “He’s not the best student, but he’s always where he’s supposed to be.”

Malachi nodded thoughtfully.

“I guess we’ll just have to grill him a bit about it on Friday,” Sophie said with a sigh.

“I guess so,” Persephone answered as she turned her phone back off.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Do you lead? Or do you follow?
> 
> NOTE: I had a weird dream during the week and ended up having enough ammo for 10k of a LokixReader fic (so far). Anyone interested? It's coming out pretty sassy so far.

Friday night.

As they always did, Persephone and Malachi made their way to Bleeker’s from where they had parked the car. Hand in hand they walked, the warm night air they had so grown used to in the summer was finally giving way to the cooler October air. It was the kind of air that meant that pumpkins and trick or treating was on the horizon. The kind of air that whispered against one's skin that the first frost was going to come soon.

They paid their way in and received their ‘X’s’, both curious was to what Alex had in store for them. Was it just that he was sick all week and the surprise was that he was now well? The crowd was bigger than normal which only added to their puzzlement.

“Is it just me or are there _way_ more people here this week?” Persephone asked.

“I was just about to ask the same thing. Is someone famous playing?”

“Famous? At Bleeker’s?”

Malachi looked at her disapprovingly.

“If we had heard from Alex at all this week, we might know.”

In as much as he was so constantly chipper as to be mildly annoying and had a tendency to attract everyone in a room to him like a magnet with some silent pull, they had to admit that they had come to rely on him for everything Bleeker’s related. He always knew who was playing, even if the weekly flier hadn't gone around yet and he was always sure to text Persephone who would be in that Friday’s line up. Because they hadn't seen him for most of the week, they had no idea who could be here to draw such a crowd.

They were busily scanning the crowd for him when a waving figure caught their attention.

“Hey!” Sophie said cheerily, drink in her hand when she saw them and waved them over.

Malachi swore she saw Alex duck behind Liam when they looked in Sophie’s direction.

They walked over and Sophie gave each of them a hug.

“Hey guys! We finally did it!”

Persephone laughed. “We've finally seen each other at Bleeker’s.”

“Started at the bottom and now we're here!” she said as she pretended to get choked up and made the group she was standing with laugh.

Persephone noticed her hair cut again. “Hey Violet.” She tried to sound pleasant.

“Hey,” she responded quietly.

Malachi nodded in her direction.

She looked at the floor.

He turned his attention back to Sophie. “Was that Alex I saw duck behind Liam or was I just seeing things?”

Persephone tried to look over Liam's shoulder.

“It was, you're gonna love the surprise.”

Liam moved and Alex was already doing his best super model pose.

“Here, we have the new fall/winter look from House of Alex.” Sophie chimed in with the voice of a fashion presenter as Alex changed poses, letting them see him from all angles. “A look combining the punk aesthetic with an ethos that says ‘I worked for three straight days on this’. Leather and studs galore, the effect is simply _riveting_.”

Everyone groaned.

Sophie guffawed at her own joke and continued. “Yes, for a fall and winter look that says, ‘I don’t care… except about this jacket,’ shop at House of Alex.”

Alex stopped posing. “Actually, I would call it more of a coat.”

“Alex, you're fucking bananas! Did you really work on it for three days?” Persephone asked.

He nodded proudly.

“Your mom let you stay home from school?”

“Yeah, uhh, I have ADD and she knows that if I get into something I want to work on it until it's done so she called the school and I just have to make up the work.”

“They didn't fight her on it?” Malachi asked.

“Oh no, they did. They always do. She just yells at them until they let her do what she wants since she’s an educator she already knows how the graduation criteria for each grade works.”

“That's pretty sweet dude.”

“Yeah,” he smiled, “I was homeschooled until last year.”

Now it made sense. The complete lack of fear when he walks up to any new person, the lack of shame he had when talking about any of his interests, the confidence that betrayed any amount of social self-preservation, and the desire to make as many friends as he possibly could? Alex had clearly been very well socialized as a child, but not with other children who might have made fun of him or made him feel stupid for liking the things he liked, he was obviously socialized with adults who encouraged his interests and who spoke to him like he was also an adult. He was a thirty-year-old in a teenager suit.

“So? What do you think?”

“Turn around again,” Malachi requested.

Alex showed them the back and both Malachi and Persephone couldn't help but touch the hundreds of pyramid studs that covered the back of the long leather coat, and then touch the shoulders, the sleeves, the collar and everything else as Alex brought their attention to little details he was particularly proud of.

“So you can't stud a vest for _me_ but you can make a whole coat for _yourself_? I have to say, I'm a little sad dude. I thought we were friends.”

“No!” Alex said, excitedly bouncing on the balls of his feet, “This is going to be our coat!” He beamed.

“I'm… not sharing a coat with you,” Malachi said hesitantly.

Persephone stared, confused.

“No, no, no, _guys_. This is-- it's a prototype coat. It's going to be the kind of coat we all have.”

They both looked at him confused.

“We're all getting coats?” Persephone asked.

“We're all getting coats!” Alex was practically shouting at this point, excited over something that seemed to make sense only to him. “I'm going to make everyone in the group coats!”

Persephone looked to Malachi and then back to him. “We're a group?”

“When does our world tour start?” Sophie asked.

Alex pushed her and she giggled while she tried to make sure her drink didn’t spill.

“Yeah. We always sit together, we're all friends, we help each other, we're a group. We should have a name and a look.”

Malachi raised an eyebrow. “...Like a gang.”

“Alex, I don't want to join a gang. Colleges don’t look kindly on gang members.”

“My grandma would _kill_ me if she found out I joined a gang. Literally slay me with a knife.”

“It’s not a gang like a _gang_ , we'll just look out for each other like a big family. And you guys aren't _joining_ , you're the _leaders_.”

“I--”

“Pardon--”

The music cut Malachi and Persephone’s responses off. They both stared at Alex for a moment, their glaring not doing a damn thing to tarnish his beaming smile, and then Malachi tapped Persephone on the shoulder and gestured to an empty spot on the boxes.

She nodded and they walked over. He lifted her up onto them, garnering a few grins from the people around them who they both recognized as some of the other people who sat at their table.

The music was good although neither of them had a clue what the band was called and they were both _way_ too concerned with their conversation with Alex to pay all that much attention. Each of them mulled over the implications of turning their informal lunch table group of weirdos and freaks into a real gang with jackets and names. Their only knowledge of gangs came from TV where it was always custom for someone to have to kill in order to join.

_Well that is just not going to happen_ , Persephone thought to herself.

TV gangs also always had fights over territory, ‘turf’.

_Stupid, stupid, stupid_ , Malachi thought.

They continued to think about where the group was headed as the band played. They both felt a little bit bad, whoever it was on stage seemed to be having a great time as the jumped around and swung their instruments and got the crowd to start moshing.

Sophie finally shoved her way through the crowd to where they were and hopped up onto the box, next to Persephone.

“So,” she spoke into Persephone’s ear, prompting Malachi to lean in so he could also hear her, “a gang, huh? He didn’t tell me that part earlier. I just saw the jacket.”

Persephone pulled back so she could show her a look of displeasure.

“I get it. But I think it could be useful to have a bunch of people who could look out for each other, you know? More so than we do now.”

“While I do think you’re right,” Malachi interjected, “just calling it a gang makes me less excited about the idea.”

“Plus, what are we going to do?” Persephone added. “Take member’s fees? Have a treasurer? I was part of a wannabe club when I was little, and no one ever wants to pay club dues.”

“When was that?” Malachi asked with a laugh.

“When I was eight. Me and some friends made a club, gave out jobs, paid our club due of one dollar, and then got into a huge fight about why we had to pay a _whole dollar_ and forgot about it after two days.”

Sophie laughed. “Yeah, but now we’re teenagers, we’ll remember it for at _least_ a week.”

Persephone sighed.

“Why do we have to be leaders?” Malachi asked. “Shouldn’t Alex be leading? Everything about this so far seems to be _his_ idea.”

“Everyone met each other because of him, but they all came together because of you.” Sophie looked into her drink for a moment before swallowing the rest of it and throwing it into the mosh pit.

“I hope that was soda,” Persephone stated flatly.

“Root beer.” Sophie answered. “What do you guys see when you look at the rest of us?”

“What do you mean?” Persephone and Malachi asked in unison.

“What do you see? Friends? Followers?”

Persephone was quiet for a moment before she responded, “I see a bunch of teenagers who put way too much stock in the stories they hear about other people.”

Malachi pointed at her, reaffirming her point, and nodded.

Sophie smiled. “They’re a bunch of lonely kids looking for someone to believe in. Sure, maybe they’re followers, but that’s because they need leadership. You two are individuals, you’re confident, you look cool and that makes all of us want to be around you.”

“You too?” Persephone asked.

“I’m super cool all on my own,” Sophie said with a roll of her eyes. “But I welcome the friendship of people as cool as me.”

Persephone and Malachi laughed.

Malachi put his hand on Persephone’s knee and squeezed it gently as he looked into her eyes. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking, if he thought it was a good idea or a bad one. She put her hand on his cheek and smoothed her thumb over his skin where she could feel that his stubble was starting to come in. Sometimes she forgot that he was a year older, until something as small as that reminded her that he was further through puberty than most of the other guys in their grade, and actually had to shave in the morning. She kissed him on the forehead before turning back to Sophie.

“So what are you, a psychiatrist or something?”

“I am doing _really_ well in my AP Psych class. Like, _astoundingly well_.”

Malachi and Persephone chuckled.

“When this song is over, have Alex and everyone come over here. I’m not sure why you all met in the middle of the floor anyway.”

Sophie smiled. “Sure thing.” And wove back through the crowd to the bar to get another cup of root beer before making her way back to where Alex, Violet, and the rest stood.

“So we’re really doing this?” Malachi asked.

“I guess so. Maybe we can just stop everyone from doing dumb shit.”

“’You can’t save everyone from themselves.’ My grandma always said that about my mom but, I think it probably applies to most people.” He shrugged.

Persephone nodded. “Then the ones who want to listen to us can stay,” she smiled.

They turned back to the band, but before Persephone could focus on what was happening onstage she felt Malachi’s lips pressed against her collarbone.

“Mal, what--?”

Her eyes fluttered closed as he worked his way upwards towards her ear, warm kisses permeating the coolness of her skin, and ended by pulling back and kissing her on the lips.

She blushed and put her hand over where he had just kissed. “What was that for?”

He smiled. “I don’t know. It looked like it needed it.”

She giggled quietly and tried to pay attention to the band.

The smile plastered across her face and the reddening of her cheeks that he could just barely see in the darkness of the concert hall coupled with her girlish giggling delighted him. He leaned in again and this time, whispered in her ear.

“I love you.”

She turned to him, her nose brushing against his before she pulled away so she could look at his face.

He smiled. It was a smile of quiet certainty. He took her hand and held the ring to his lips for a moment.

In response she pulled her hand back and wrapped her arms around his neck, squeezing him tightly to her.

“I love you too.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You do seem as if you’re in desperate need of leadership.”  
> “Why thank you.”
> 
> Word count: 2,733

The music blared in the background, accosting the concertgoers. The singer was still screaming and the other band members were giving their all to their performance. Malachi and Persephone weren’t paying attention to it in the slightest. They were both mentally readying themselves for the ensuing conversation with Alex and the crew, or rather, the friend group that was now ‘their crew.’ Their _official_ crew. Persephone made a note to start learning remembering people’s names.

Bored with a band that he didn’t care about, Malachi shifted his attention to Persephone. He turned to her and caged her in with his body, parting her knees so he could stand between them, one on either side of his hip. This earned him a questioning glance as he touched her nose gently with his own. His hands on either side of her on the wooden box, he leaned his forehead against hers and sighed. The sensation of the splintering wood that pressed into his palms was so strangely different from her soft skin.

She smiled. And, almost out of reflex, she slid her arms under his jacket and hugged him. She snuggled into him as he stood there, his temple against hers, and squeezed him tightly. 

“You know, I don’t think either of us has paid attention to the band this entire time.”

Persephone felt Malachi’s cheek flex against hers as he smiled.

“I almost feel bad for them.”

“I don’t.”

Persephone pulled away. “Why?”

He shrugged. “They’re getting paid either way. They can’t expect everyone to be paying attention to them.”

Persephone admonished him with a look.

“There’s nothing more that I would rather do right now, than ignore everything and everyone else and just to pay attention to you.”

She smiled tentatively and giggled. “What does that even mean?”

Malachi closed his arms around her and pulled her in. “For someone with such good grades you can be such a doofus, you know?”

“How am I a doofus?” She laughed.

He whispered into her ear. “No matter… how loud some shitty band is and how many people around are talking and screaming and throwing themselves into each other and making noise… or if a group of people want us to lead them to some imagined better future or whatever shit they think could possibly happen…”

Persephone laughed.

“I’m telling you, they’re going to put us on horses and make us lead the charge. With swords and shit.”

Persephone hit his side, prompting Malachi to laugh as well.

“No matter all that – and you can hit me as hard as you like – I’m only ever going to be looking at you. I’m only here for you… I only want you.”

Persephone was glad that he was holding her, so he couldn’t see her blush.

“I know you’re blushing because your face is hot,” he laughed.

She pulled away and hit him and then covered her cheeks and wished they would cool down and be less red.

He pulled her hands off and kissed each cheek before whispering, “I like that we’ve known each other a year and I can still make you blush.”

She stuck her tongue out of him.

* * *

Malachi and Persephone cozied up and waited until the current band, whose name they still didn’t know, was finished. Once the floor cleared of moshers, people excitedly talking about the music, and those who drunkenly hung off of each other, the rest of their own group made their way over to them.

“So?” Alex said, smiling. “We can have jackets?”

Malachi looked to Persephone, who nodded.

“We’re getting Jackets.” She smiled.

A chorus of “yes!” was accompanied by the members of the group high fiving and patting each other on the shoulders as if some great victory was won. Alex hugged Sophie and then Violet.

“So what’s our name?”

Persephone narrowed her eyes. “You really are trying to test me, aren’t you?”

Alex laughed.

“What would make you think that I thought of a name in a half hour?”

“Well, you know, whenever you think of one, let me know.”

Persephone sighed. “Sure.”

Sophie hopped onto the box next to Persephone and pulled her in for a hug. Malachi’s attention was suddenly demanded by Liam, who was patting him on the back and congratulating them as a group.

Persephone watched as Violet whispered in Alex’s ear and they made their way over to the bar where he ordered her a drink. They stood there and talked for a bit, Alex talking animatedly while Violet mostly nodded.

Persephone leaned over to Sophie so only she could hear her. “Are they together?’

“I don’t know. I think he might have a little bit of a crush on her… but it’s hard to tell because he’s so nice.”

“Yeah, and she barely says anything to anyone so how would we even know.”

“Maybe we should make them get together.”

Persephone looked at her disapprovingly. “You shouldn’t meddle in people’s lives.”

“Whose lives are we meddling in?” Malachi asked as he turned his attention to their conversation. He leaned against the box next to Persephone and looked towards where they had been looking.

“Sophie wants to get Alex and Violet together.”

“Narc,” Sophie said accusingly.

“We tell each other everything so he was going to find out.”

Sophie rolled her eyes.

“I don’t know,” Malachi said as he played with the hem on the sleeve of his flannel shirt. “They could make a cute couple.”

“No,” Persephone said firmly.

“Why not?”

“They can be a couple if they decide to be a couple. Meddling in people’s love lives counts as ‘stupid shit we should stop people from doing.’”

Sophie blew a raspberry and Malachi nodded mockingly.

Sophie narrowed her eyes. “I’m so glad we have a mom to stop us from doing dumb things.”

“You wanted it,” Persephone retorted.

“Only if you cut the crust off my sandwiches.”

Malachi chuckled.

“What are you laughing at?”

“You’re ‘mom’.”

Exasperated and out of ideas, Persephone did the only thing she could think to do: inhaled deeply and shoved her hands in Malachi’s face while going “Ahhhhh!” in false anger.

Malachi evaded her hands, taking one and kissing her on the palm. She stared at him wryly.

“Okay, you guys are gross,” Sophie said and hopped back off the box, “I’m going to talk to people.” Dramatically, she put her hand on the box like a character from a movie out of the 1930s about to make a big speech, “Leave a candle burning in the window for me so I can find my way home,” and unceremoniously shoved her way through the crowd.

Malachi and Persephone watched her leave.

“Does that mean we’re saving her seat?” Malachi asked.

“I don’t know. You know, you could sit up here if you want.”

He shook his head. “I don’t want to take a spot that another shortie like you could put to good use.”

“A ‘shortie like me’?”

“You know, a tiny, little, small person.”

Persephone narrowed her eyes at his height comment before putting on a smug demeanor. “There are no others like me.”

Understanding her meaning, he kissed her. “You are very, very right.”

Persephone smiled.

“Mom.”

She dug her fingers into his sides and tickled him making him jump. “If I’m ‘mom’ then you’re ‘dad’!”

“Ohh, call me daddy again!”

“You are _so gross_.”

Malachi twisted out of her grasp, spinning himself around in the process and slamming into a passerby.

“Ow, hey!”

“I’m so sorry—Zak! Hey!”

“Oh shit, hey man!”

Persephone hopped off her perch and joined them. “Hey Zak, are you playing tonight?”

“Nah, I’m here to see my friend’s band. They’re on next.”

“What’s the name?” Malachi asked.

“Suzy Q and the Greasers? They do this whole rockabilly-punk-goth thing, it’s pretty sweet.”

“Are you friends with the titular Suzy?” Persephone asked, half joking.

“Yeah,” Zak laughed. “She plays double bass, you can’t miss her.”

“Cool.” Persephone nodded.

“They’re really good. I hope you like them.” Zak smiled.

Malachi and Persephone had known Zak since they met him the year before and while they didn’t really get the opportunity to talk to him often, he was always pretty reserved. He went to their school and was a year older than them, after talking about it one day, they came to the conclusion that he either cared about grade delineation that much, or he was just too chill of a dude and rarely got emotional. Each realized that they couldn’t remember a time when they saw him smile before.

Slightly thrown, Malachi answered, “Uh, yeah. Us too. Hey, did you catch the last band’s name we missed it.”

“Nah, man. I didn’t. I didn’t really like them and I think they’re new so…”

“Thank god we’re not the only ones,” Persephone said.

“I think most people who weren’t moshing didn’t really pay attention to their set. So you’re okay.”

“Do you know who’s on last?”

Zak thought for a moment. “You know, I know Suzy told me bit I can’t remember. Sorry.”

“That’s okay.” Malachi said. “Hey, we’re excited for her band at least.”

“Yeah, man, me too.” Zak smiled again. “I was actually on my way to help her set up, so I hope you don’t mind if I leave.”

“No, go ahead.” Persephone said.

And with that, Zak made his way to the stage.

* * *

Suzy Q and the Greasers were something else. A perfect blend of gothic inspired punk with the bombastic rhythm of a double bass running through every song. Suzy had the voice of a pissed off angel, and Persephone found herself surprisingly jealous of her fashion sense; an A-line dress, victory rolls in bright blue hair, and skulls everywhere. She was thoroughly considering a genre switch.

That wasn’t the only thing she noticed, however. She also noticed Zak, who stood side stage the entire set and cheered Suzy on the entire time. Whether Alex liked Violet or not was more of a conundrum, but to her it was abundantly clear that Zak had it in for Suzy. She smiled to herself at the thought, no wonder he was so excited. He probably liked her as a person and admired her as a musician as well.

Suzy did something the bands at Bleeker’s rarely did, and introduced the members during their last song. Right before their set ended, she thanked the audience and told everyone to visit their Myspace to find their music.  Persephone had to admit, as performers they seemed a little more mature than most of the bands that played, and appreciated the little touch of class they gave the place.

Their set over, Zak immediately began to help Suzy move stuff of the stage, and she greeted him with a warm smile.

Persephone pulled her phone out of her pocket and found their Myspace as fast as she could and followed them.

“They were really good,” the returned Sophie said from her spot next to Persephone.

“Oh my god, I _loved_ them.” Persephone gushed.

“She dresses so cool, it almost makes me want to grow my hair out again.”

Persephone laughed.

Malachi was listening to the two of them happily chat about Suzy and her bandmates – how great her sense of style was, how good of a singer she was, and how cool the rest of the band looked and how well they played – until he felt the distinct feeling of eyes on the back of his head. At first he thought he was imagining things, the idea had come out of nowhere as if it wasn’t even a thought his brain had created, but the longer he stood there the more the voices around him faded away and the more he felt like he was being honed in on.

He had a sudden feeling like he was prey in the tall grass.

He looked around, finding no one looking at him. And yet the thought nagged at him, like a child pulling at the hem of their parent’s shirt demanding attention. Whatever nerves that might be involved in forming a sixth sense kept sending up alarm bells in his brain.

He turned all the way around.

Looking straight at him – not at all startled that he had turned so quickly – impassively staring, was Damon.

He was leaning, back against the bar, full on staring at him. They could have been the only two people in the place, Damon was so unbothered by the dozens of people that filled up the space between them, people who must have been in his field of vision, but Damon kept staring directly at him.

Malachi was unnerved, to say the least. He had no idea what he had done to incur such blatant and _creepy_ staring. He hadn’t even _seen_ Damon or Bad Sex since the last year and assumed their absence was due to touring or something.

Or maybe he wasn’t. Maybe it was all in his head because what reason could Damon possibly have to stare at him? Over the course of a few seconds Malachi accepted – or perhaps he convinced himself, he wasn’t sure – that maybe Damon was just staring off into space and happened to be looking in his general direction instead of looking _at_ him.

Malachi turned back around and tried to rejoin the conversation.

“–I mean, he was staring right at her the whole time.”

“Of _course_ like, how can he _not_.”

“Did you see him, Mal?”

“Uh, who?”

“Zak, he was looking at Suzy the whole time,” Persephone said with a smile.

“He had hearts in his eyes.” Sophie laughed. “Like the way Mal looks at you.” Sophie make kissy noises at Persephone.

“You know, sometimes you make me feel like I’m still in grade school.”

“That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

Persephone looked back at Malachi who seemed to be deep in thought. “You okay?” She asked, touching his hand.

He looked down, and noticed maybe for the first time just how much smaller her hand was than his. He pressed his palm against hers and held them up together.

She smiled.

He kissed her.

“I’m fine.”

The next band started, drawing all the eyes in the room towards them. Bad Sex was on the stage, and Damon was right at the front and seemed to be looking in their direction.

Persephone squinted at the stage. “ _These_ fucking clowns?” She turned to Malachi, “Wanna leave early? I’m not sitting through them a second time.”

Malachi was relieved. “Yes, please.”

Persephone leaned over to Sophie, “Were leaving.”

“I feel you man. I’m leaving with Alex though and he’s too nice to leave just because a band is bad.”

“Want a ride?”

“Nah, I have my phone on me.”

* * *

After saying a rushed goodbye to Alex and whoever happened to be in his near vicinity, Malachi and Persephone left the venue hand in hand.

As they made their way to the car, Persephone remembered the thought she had earlier in the week. She waited until they were in the car to attempt to bring it up, the privacy of the car itself lending a sort of conversation privacy.

“Mal?” She asked as she pulled her seat belt out with a _zip!_ and buckled it.

“Yeah?” He did the same.

“Are you okay? You seemed a little weird back there.”

He shrugged. “I’m fine.”

She looked at him harshly.

“Okay, I think that maybe Damon was staring at us.”

“What?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I’m wrong.”

“That’s a little weird. We haven’t even spoken to him in—”

“A year.”

“Wow… about as long as we’ve been dating.”

“Yeah.” Malachi started the car.

“Um… speaking of dating,” she said, trying the segue into the reason she started the conversation, “When am I going to meet your grandmother?”

Malachi stopped. “You want to meet her?”

“Yeah. I mean, it makes sense. She has to be wondering about me.”

“She uh…” he laughed softly. “She has been asking about you.”

“What? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t know if you want to meet her… because you don’t have that great of a relationship with your mom.”

“Yeah, I don’t, but I’d like one.”

Malachi nodded. “Sorry, sorry… if she says yes, do you want to have dinner with us? I’m sure she’ll make something amazing.”

“Mal…” she put her hand on his, “Of course.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day in the life.  
> Word count: 2,554

Wednesday, the week after. Malachi sat in his usual seat behind Persephone in their English class. The class was working through The Crucible and were busy watching the 1996 film adaptation. “Busy” was probably not the correct word, as most of the students weren’t even paying attention, opting instead to text their friends or browse through their MySpace for some kind of personality quiz post to kill the time. The teacher was properly busy, she sat at her desk grading papers as the movie ran, while more than one student had fallen asleep at their desk in the dark room.

Persephone leaned with her cheek on her hand as she alternated between watching the movie and doodling in her notebook. She liked The Crucible, she really did, it was intense and dramatic, and she already knew that the play was Miller’s commentary on the Red Scare and that he took a huge risk to his own safety to try to explain to people why mob rule and paranoia was _not_ the basis for solving problems. She could respect the story and its author for all of that. However, she was bored because she and Malachi had already rented the movie at the library and watched it at her house the Saturday before after he admitted he was having a hard time reading the play format during class. Also, she had hoped to discuss more of the book in class and wanted to get Malachi involved in the conversation, and instead the teacher stopped their reading for the day so they could watch the movie. As she doodled, she wondered if the teacher was lazy or was just tired of all the teenaged giggling that inevitably took place during some of the dialogue due to the dated phrasing and unfortunate word choices. Not even actually unfortunate, just unfortunate enough that immature high school students could find something to laugh at.

Persephone felt Malachi’s hand on her shoulder, and watched as the note he dropped fell into her lap. His hand lingered for a moment on her neck his warm touch making her wish the period were already over, before retreating back to his own desk. She smiled, thankful for the distraction, and opened the note.

_IT IS MY NAAAAME!!_ Malachi had written, one of the last lines of the play. A line that, despite its power and importance in both the play and Miller’s feelings on the political atmosphere at the time, was somewhat ridiculous out of context. Or even in context. Daniel Day-Lewis could get out of hand.

She stifled a laugh and responded, pretending to fidget with her bra strap as she let the paper fall onto his desk.

_You’re terrible_. Accompanied by a drawing of a face with the tongue sticking out.

_You don’t seem to think I’m so bad_.

_Ha. Maybe I’m lying to you. Like a lying liar_.

_Are you?_

_Nah._

_Bored by the movie?_

_Yeah, man. I’m wishing we hadn’t watched it, lol._

_Same._

A second paper fell onto Persephone’s desk.

_I almost forgot, I told my grandma I thought it was time you two met_.

_You didn’t tell her I asked why we hadn’t?_

_I hope you don’t mind if I let her think she finally got to me._

_Ha. No._

_Cool. So we’re going to have to miss Bleeker’s this Friday because that’s when she wants to make dinner._

_Sounds good. The ‘gang’ might be a little sad though._

_They’re big boys and girls, I’m sure they’ll survive. Also, if you could not call it that in front of my grandma, that would be great._ Great was underlined twice.

_Of course_.

_Unless you want to be giving my eulogy next Monday_.

_lol_

_You’ll be a teenaged widow. Sounds like a Suzy Q and the Greasers song._

Persephone crumpled up the paper and tossed it at his face. He laughed as it hit him and landed on the desk.

_OMG, MAL._

“Mr. Alvarez, Ms. MacPherson,” a voice in the front of the room said sternly. “Why do I see papers being thrown in your area?”

“I was littering, Mrs. Thomlison, and Persephone was telling me I should recycle.” Malachi answered quickly.

In the short time it took him to answer, Persephone’s blood had gone cold. How the hell did she notice them when she hadn’t noticed the obvious snoring in the back of the class?

“If I see it again I’m going to separate you.”

“It won’t happen again, Mrs. Thomlison.”

He shoved the note into his pocket.

Malachi, confused by Persephone’s stillness, looked to the teacher first and when he saw she had gone back to her grading moved to touch Persephone’s shoulder.

“Are you okay?” He whispered.

“Maybe we should stop passing notes,” she admitted. “I don’t want to get booted out of the class into whatever class is lower than ‘regular students’.”

He looked for her hands, as they were clasped together in her lap, and tugged on her sleeve until she gave and let him capture it in his own. He looked to the teacher again, still grading and not paying attention. “If you get kicked out of the class, I’ll just do something stupid and be put in the ‘problem class’ with you.”

“That wouldn’t help my college prospects.”

“Maybe not.” He thought for a moment as he interlaced his fingers into her own. “But you wouldn’t be lonely.”

She sighed. She didn’t know if it was that he tried to be a good boyfriend and always said the right thing, or if maybe it was just effortless to him.

* * *

 

“Hey. Where’s Mal?” Sophie asked as she sat across from Persephone at the lunch table.

Persephone looked up from her book. “Hey. He had some kind of lunchtime meeting in his Auto class or something.”

Sophie looked around. “Ah, yeah. I don’t see Liam either.”

Persephone also looked around and nodded before returning to her book.

“Can I sit here?” A voice asked at a near whisper.

They looked up.

Violet stood, almost startled with the quickness of their attention. Her hair was back in pigtails, a move that further cemented in Persephone’s mind that she was trying to copy her. She waited, all knock-kneed and poor posture for either of them to answer.

“Sure.” Persephone said.

Violet appeared to move to sit next to Persephone at first, but then decided to sit next to Sophie instead.

“So, just us girls huh?” Sophie asked.

“Looks like it.”

Persephone ate a few fries from her plate and went back to reading, while Sophie took a bite of her hamburger and stared at one of the academic posters on the wall. Violet ate like a rabbit who was on the lookout for prey. Nervously and like she might be startled at the slightest noise.

“Hey,” Sophie began as she put her burger down. “What if we all did something together?”

Persephone looked up. “…I don’t follow.”

Violet looked at her, confused but curious.

“Like, Malachi can have his cool Auto shop lunch all he wants, why don’t the girls do something?” She looked at them, wide smile on her face in an attempt to encourage a positive response.

Persephone raised an eyebrow. “This is the only time he’s ever had a shop lunch, I don’t think we need to try to ‘get him back.’” She laughed and looked back her book.

“No, put it down!” Sophie commanded as she tried to swat the book from her hands.

“Dude, if you—” Persephone dodged.

“No, no, bring it back!” Sophie reached.

Persephone grabbed a piece of her napkin and shoved it between the pages of the worn-out book. “If you lost my page I would be so mad.”

“Serves you right for doing schoolwork at the gang table.”

“ _Shh_ ,” Persephone hissed. “You want to get us sent to the principal?”

“Okay, I was joking, I’m sorry.”

“…And it wasn’t homework, I was reading for fun.”

“What was it?” Violet asked quietly.

Persephone looked at her for a moment, not really expecting conversation. “Pride and Prejudice.”

Violet smiled. “I wish we could all have a Mister Darcy.”

Persephone nodded. “Now, what’s your problem?” She directed at Sophie.

“We should do like a girl’s night!”

“Dude, if you think I’m wearing a mini dress and going to some club—”

“Noooo! I mean like just hang out at one of our houses. Pop some popcorn, watch some movies, just us girls. We could even have a sleep over.”

Persephone tilted her head. “But Sophie, you don’t have any hair to braid while we talk about boys.”

“Ha ha. Who needs hair when you have these angles?” She looked at Persephone over her shoulder and batted her eyes. Then she posed with her hand on her the back of her head and her elbow pointing up like a ‘nonchalant’ high fashion model.

Persephone rolled her eyes and laughed, Violet laughed softly.

Persephone looked at Violet for a moment. Maybe she _was_ starting to copy her look, and she would freely admit, to anyone who asked that she _totally_ , thought she was. But maybe it was like Sophie had said weeks before; maybe Violet was just another kid who needed guidance, who needed someone to look up to. The thought was still weird to her, they were the same age after all, and didn’t people normally look up to people older than them? Someone who seemed like they’d done some living and knew what to do in most situations? Maybe that was just the nature of high school, people in your own grade seemed older if they had a better sense of themselves – or seemed to on the outside at least – and anyone in a grade higher than yours seemed like a goddamned adult already. Meanwhile, none of you could legally drink and only a few of you could legally drive.

“What about you Violet?” Persephone asked. “You want to have a sleep over?”

Violet shrugged and answered quietly. “It might be fun.”

She sighed. “Fine. We’ll have a girl’s night.”

Sophie clapped her hands together happily. “Yes! I’m going to introduce you to my all-time _favorite_ movie line up. All bad ass ladies, super fun.”

“What movies?”

“No, no, no. They’re a surprise.”

Persephone smiled, an eyebrow raised. “If they must be.”

Sophie, excited, put a hand on Violet’s shoulder and pushed it back and forth until she laughed with her.

“Can I go back to my book now?” Persephone asked, already opening the book.

“Go ahead.” Sophie said.

She opened the book and resumed her spot. It was the scene where Mr. Collins tried to convince Elizabeth Bennet that women are wont to reject a marriage proposal multiple times in the hope that a man would show his love by proposing over and over again. The original negging, name dropping, pick-up-artist jackass.

* * *

 

Malachi sat, as did the other boys from his Auto class, with his coveralls pushed down to his waist, the arms tied. He pulled another slice of pizza from the box and folded it, biting off a sizable portion. They all sat around on unused crates, the boxes of pizza on their own crates in the center.

“Malachi,” Liam started. “Do you mind if I ask you something?”

”Go ahead.”

“How… how did you get a girl like Persephone to go out with you?”

“Yeah, dude,” another boy who sat next to Liam said as he turned to them. “Dude, your girlfriend’s _smokin’ hot_.”

“Okay, so, Mitch” Malachi started and held his hand out in a ‘please stop whatever you’re doing’ motion. “I’m going to stop you right there. I didn’t get her to go out with me by telling her she was ‘smoking hot,’ okay? Girls don’t like that shit.”

“Dude, they don’t?”

Malachi shook his head. “No. You have to talk to them like they’re people.” He looked to Liam, “Because they are.”

Liam suppressed a laugh.

“Dude, really?”

“Mitch are you high right now?”

Mitch’s eyes widened. “A little, yeah.”

“Don’t let him touch the controls on the lift,” Malachi said to the rest of the group before turning back to Liam. “Honestly, I passed her notes in class and nearly pissed her off before I could ask her out.”

“Really?” Liam asked, bemused.

“Yeah,” Malachi laughed. “So I don’t know if I’m the best person to ask that question.”

They both paused for a moment as they watched Mitch stack two slices on top of each other and try to eat them at the same time.

“So uh…” Liam had to think for a moment to regain his original train of thought. “Aside from talking to a girl like she's a human, which I was going to do anyway--”

Malachi chuckled.

“--uh, how do you ask a girl out?”

“Umm…” he thought for a few minutes as he ate his pizza. “I think everyone is a bit different. But… you have to have stuff in common, you have to enjoy hanging out beforehand--”

“Yeah, but how do you know _when_ to ask her out? How did you know you wanted to ask Seph out?”

Malachi laughed for a moment. “You're going to think it's stupid.”

“Tell me.”

“Yeah, tell us,” Mitch echoed, his mouth still full of pizza.

“I walked into our English class the first day and saw her… we were wearing the same boots and I just… knew I had to ask her out.”

“Her boots?”

Malachi shook his head. “I mean, it was more than that. She was this punk rock goddess sitting in our class when she looked like she could have been raising hell somewhere else… When I saw her I knew I had to ask her out.”

Liam nodded and ate his pizza thoughtfully.

“So who are you asking out?”

“What?”

“You don’t just ask about why and when and how to ask someone out unless you have someone in mind, man.”

“Yeah, dude!” Mitch laughed.

Liam laughed nervously. “Uh, you know. Just a girl.”

“So you’re straight, we got that.” Malachi smiled. “Does she have a name?”

Mitch stood, slightly wobbly, and draped himself across Liam’s shoulders. “Dude, what’s her name? What’s she look like?” He laughed.

“Dude, you smell like weed and cheese grease.” Liam said, grimacing.

“Why are you high at school anyway?”

Mitch shrugged. “I dunno, man. Shit’s boring, I have to make it a little interesting.” Mitch looked around, noticed the pizza like he just realized it was the best thing ever created in the history of humanity, and almost fell over a crate trying to get another slice.

Malachi and Liam looked at each other and shook their heads.

“So you’re not going to tell me?”

Liam opened his mouth as if to say something but closed it.

“Okay, fine. You don’t have to tell me. I guess if I see you holding hands with some cutie in the hallway I’ll know who it was.”

“Not if she says no.”

Malachi shrugged. “Then you ask someone else. There’s lots of people in the world, means there’s plenty of people to date.”

“Yeah but I want to…”

“Be in love?”

Liam nodded shyly. “I mean… yeah.”

“We’re teenagers, man, you have time.”

“I’m a little jealous you found someone already.”

Malachi laughed. “Just lucky I guess.”


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone is nervous except grandma. Grandmas have no reason to be nervous. They rule the world with a pair of iron knitting needles.
> 
> Word count: 6,921
> 
>  
> 
> Note: So I think because my work has picked up (due to the semester starting) I might start doing a longer upload every other week instead of a shorter one once a week. I also think that maybe uploading shorter stuff once a week is making me write... worse? I’m not sure, but there are some things at the beginning of those year that I feel are a bit unfocused and would like to redo at some point in the future.

Persephone looked out over her bedroom floor. It was litter with the debris of a hurricane of clothing with her standing in the middle of what would have been the calm eye of the storm.

Except she wasn’t calm.

Shirts, pants, dresses, almost every article of clothing she owned was strewn about in a stream of consciousness parade where she tried on one item after the other trying to find the perfect ‘I’m here to show that I’m a good girl and please let me continue dating your grandson,’ outfit. This was never a position she thought she’d be in, trying to impress someone’s parents or grandparents, and since her entire wardrobe leaned heavily towards ‘Fuck tha police,’ ‘Punk’s not dead,’ and ‘Oi! Oi! Oi!’ she found herself having a problem. As she looked out over the carnage, the floor looking like someone had run into Trash and Vaudeville and wrecked the place, she wondered just what the hell she was going to wear.

Inspiration jolted through her as she remembered, somewhat morosely, that she had bought a dress two years ago when one of her own grandmothers died. Hoping she hadn’t gotten rid of it, she stood, stumbled, and proceeded to ransack the bottom of her closet. Nothing there. Her heart pounded for a moment, it was demure, it was plain, it toned down the fact that she had bright green hair, she needed it if she wanted his grandma to like her and she was running out of time. She looked up, seeing boxes on the top shelf and ran into the hallway to grab the step stool out of the linen closet. Stool in hand, she stood and took the boxes down as gently as she could. She emptied one and found no dress. She angrily threw the box to the floor and took the next one down. She pulled everything out and breathed a sigh of relief as the dress was in the bottom. Folded nicely, it was a black long-sleeved knit with a white peter pan collar. Yes, it looked a little bit ‘Wednesday Addams’ but it was the only thing she had left, and the only thing that didn’t look ‘Tank Girl.’

Wondering what was in the last box, she climbed the ladder again, calmer now that she had something to wear, and took it down. Inside was the blanket she had come home from the hospital in, a box that when she shook it gave the familiar clattering of rocks hitting the sides, and a battered old copy of Frankenstein. It was a copy not much larger than a hand and had gilded edges, the dust cover was banged up and small pieces were missing, and the spine had been thoroughly cracked. Persephone opened it, her junior high handwriting graced the first page with her name. She smiled, placed the book on her dresser, and put the box back.

She surveyed the room. At this point it looked like ‘a sty,’ ‘a bomb went off,’ ‘a tornado hit,’ and other things a parent might say when faced with the sheer terror of the mess that is their teenager’s bedroom. A spread in Pottery Barn Kids, this wasn’t. She sighed and pulled off her shirt and pants, adding them to the chaos. She wasn’t even sure what was clean and what was dirty anymore, she figured she would just wash it all on Sunday. She put on the dress and looked in the mirror. It was slightly tighter than she remembered it but it fit, and it didn’t make her look like such a delinquent. It’s not like she had time to make her hair any other color, so she decided to make herself look less, ‘Down with the man’ and more ‘Hello, I am a very good student and never get into trouble and probably go to church every Sunday.’ The first two points of that statement were absolutely true, the last one, the last time she was in a church was the last time she wore the dress. She fished around in a box on her dresser for a headband and found a black one with a bow on it. Perfect. She decided to do a simple makeup look and just lined her eyes with eyeliner, going for the ‘innocent girl next door,’ doe-eyed look.

She smoothed out her dress and looked in the mirror. She looked everything she felt she wasn’t, completely demure and cute – and a plus, not at all like the moms on Malachi’s street would be warning each other to lock up their sons at the sight of her. She grabbed a small purse from her mirror, took one last look at herself, and grabbed her keys and her phone and made her way downstairs.

* * *

 

Mal decided earlier at school that he should pick Persephone up at her house, “My area isn’t bad but it’s not a very nice walk.” He had hoped that maybe he could finally meet her mother, but as he pulled up to her house he noticed her car was gone. As usual, she was at work and probably wouldn’t be back until much later. Persephone opened the house door as he turned off the car and got out.

“Wow.” He said, mouth open as he surveyed her.

“’Wow’ what?”

“So that’s what you look like all…”

“Normal?” She laughed as she smoothed her hair behind her ear. “Do you think she’ll like me?”

“As long as you don’t do anything extreme, she’ll probably like you. She knows I like you so that’ll be enough.”

“Yeah, right. She’s going to watch me like a hawk for any weirdness or bad behavior like any good parent should.”

Malachi laughed and walked to the other side of the car to open the door for her. “Hey, if she likes me, she’ll probably like you. You get better grades anyway.”

Persephone laughed and got in.

Malachi got in on the driver’s side and started the car. “You look really cute by the way.”

* * *

 

They pulled up at Malachi’s house.

“Shit. You’re not afraid of dogs, are you?”

“Uh, no. Why?”

“We have three huge rottweilers that protect the house.”

“Are they mean?”

“Nah, they’re like kittens. But they’ll probably bark at you anyway. And… you’re not a strange young man in a white shirt and black tie who wants to ask about our ‘relationship with Jesus’, so you’ll be fine.”

“They hate Mormons?”

“There’s a bunch that always come around here, they probably want to convert people in ‘bad areas’ or whatever. But the dogs hate them, no idea why.”

Persephone nodded, trying to distract herself from the terror of having to impress Malachi’s grandmother by wondering if maybe the Mormon church was nearby, or if they took the bus over, and why they insisted on coming back to a place over and over when no one was converting.

“You ready?” Malachi asked.

Persephone’s eyes snapped to him.

* * *

 

“I was so nervous.”

“You had no reason to be.”

Persephone lifted her head off Malachi’s shoulder. “No reason? Dude, she was your grandmother. It was like the girl equivalent of if you came to my house and had to impress my dad.”

Malachi rolled his eyes and laughed. “If anyone had to be nervous it was me, because then I would have to hear afterwards how much she hated you.”

She hit his arm. “I’m serious! I was so nervous. What if she hated me and forbade you from seeing me?”

“That would have been a bit hard since we had the same English class at the time.”

Persephone narrowed her eyes at him.

“If my grandma or your mom tried to stop us from seeing each other, I would have found a way to see you.”

She narrowed her eyes as far as she could before she was unable to see.

“You know I’m right.”

She sighed and leaned her head back on his shoulder. “Fine. Continue the story.”

* * *

 

“Uh… I guess I don’t really have a choice, do I?”

Malachi tilted his head in thought for a moment. “Well, I could drive you home and lie that you were sick when I got there and couldn’t come.”

Persephone vaguely considered the idea.

“But I think she’d be a little bit sad she couldn’t meet the girl who stole her grandson’s heart.” He inclined his head at her and smiled.

“She said that?”

“No. But it’s true, and I’d like very much for you two to meet each other and get along.”

Her breathing involuntary quickened. “What if I scratch the good china or something?”

“We do not have ‘good china.’” He responded with a raised eyebrow.

Persephone wrung her hands in thought. Malachi saw as her skin lightened from pressure of the action and pulled her right hand from her grasp. He kissed the ring and held her hand as he looked into her eyes.

“She doesn’t—she doesn’t know about the ring, does she?”

“No. I figured that you wouldn’t want me to mention it since only we know.”

She sighed. “At least that’s one awkward conversation I don’t have to have.”

Malachi smiled softly.

His smile, gentle as it was, was what made Persephone throw away the idea that she might get out of the car and run until she was back home.

“Okay. I’m ready.”

Mal smiled and got out, and opened the door for her. He took her hand in his and led her up to the front door where he unlocked it and pushed it open. The door didn’t give easy as the three dogs were crowding and barely let them in because all three were trying to sniff at Persephone at the same time.

“Just imagine you’re being inspected,” Malachi tried to reassure her.

She laughed nervously. “They’re huge dogs.”

“They won’t bite you.”

“No, but they might knock me over,” Persephone responded as one dog pushed her into the other and she nearly toppled over him like a victim in a Three Stooges movie.

“Okay, okay. Boys? You need to calm down.” Malachi commanded.

Two of the dogs ignored him while the third sniffed him instead and then, satisfied, went into the kitchen.

“What are their names?” Persephone asked, still being shoved by the two dogs.

“The one that just walked away was Leo, he’s more like my grandma’s second in command. That’s Tiny,” he said and pointed to the biggest dog, “he’s the one who’s always on the lookout for the Mormons.”

Persephone laughed as Tiny huffed, finished with his inspection, and went to the window.

“And that’s Bear,” he pointed at the remaining dog. Bear also huffed, but turned towards the kitchen and waited for them.

“He’s uh, the house escort.”

“Seems like they all have jobs. Did you train them?”

“Nah. They kind of decided on their own.”

“Mal? That you?”

“Yeah, mama.”

“Mijito, come in here and get the big plate down for me?”

“Of course, mama.” Mal took Persephone’s hand and they followed Bear into the kitchen.

“Did you bring in the guest, Bear?” Malachi’s grandma asked the dog as he laid down, satisfied that he did his job.

“Grandma, this is my girlfriend, Persephone. Persephone, this is my grandma.”

His grandma smiled as she turned the burners on the stove off. “You can call me Concetta, if you want. Or just ‘Connie’.”

Persephone laughed nervously, looked to Mal and then looked back. “I don’t know if I can call you Connie.”

They both looked at her inquisitively.

“Well, isn’t it disrespectful for a teenager to call an adult by their first name, much less a nickname?”

Mal turned his attention to his grandmother who seemed amused more than anything.

“Then just call me ‘grandma,’ honey.”

Mal squeezed Persephone’s hand and smiled, and went to the cabinet to get the serving plate.

“Mama, would you call this ‘good china’?” He asked as he walked it over to her.

“Honey, you know we don’t have good china. Plates are plates.”

Persephone shot him a glare and he smiled back.

Grandma filled up the serving plate and motioned for him to bring it over to the dining room table.

“is there anything you want me to help with?” Persephone asked.

“Sweetie, you're a guest. Don't worry about it.”

Persephone nodded, completely worried that she wasn't making a good first impression. She stood awkwardly, her arms stiff at her sides, trying to affect the look of a person who was supposed to be there and who wasn't freaking out. She looked around the room. There were plates with pictures of idyllic rustic life, cats, or scenes of families painted on them on the highest shelves in the kitchen. For some reason there seemed to be a fair amount of roosters in barnyards.

“If you want to do something,” Grandma began,” you can take the table setting over to Malachi and help him set the table.”

Persephone smiled and nodded, and took the stacked plates and utensils into the other room.

Malachi was just finishing fixing the table cloth and set the serving dish down in the middle of the table. “Hey. How'd it go?”

“I asked her if I could help and she told me to bring these in.”

“Great, let's put them out,” he smiled.

All the terror of the situation melted right out of Persephone's bones when he smiled. She couldn't help but be completely soothed by the face she loved so much. She hadn't realized she was smiling back as she helped set the table.

“What?’ he asked.

She tried to suppress her grin. “Nothing.”

“What is it?” He whispered.

She shook her head. “You have a really great smile is all.”

Malachi couldn’t help but smile again, bashfully looking down as he smoothed out the tablecloth and adjusted the tableware.

“Okay, who is ready to eat?” Grandma said as she walked into the room with another serving plate of food. She then said something to Malachi in Spanish to which he nodded and went back into the kitchen. Persephone couldn’t understand because she took French in school and could only guess at the meaning of one or two words. Malachi returned with the last serving plate and placed it on the table.

Grandma smiled. “Everyone, sit.”

Earlier, in between freaking out and trying to find something plain enough to wear, Persephone had wondered if they had a large dining room table like the one at her house; the huge rectangular kind people only own because they intend on having large family parties during the holidays. The table at her house had gotten used significantly less since her father died, the apathy of her dad's family leading to too many a phone conversation she had overheard her mom having in which she estimated that whichever of his blood relatives – it didn’t matter who – was making excuses to not come to their house for Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner. This table, which could easily fit 10 people around it, had none of the inherent hierarchy surrounding table seating, because it was round. The equality of being able to sit in any seat was interesting to Persephone, as if she was seeing the very table that King Arthur used; round so he could be equals with his fellow knights. The wood of the table itself was well worn, as Persephone had seen before Malachi finished fixing the tablecloth, and she figured it must have been host to many a family gathering.

But the table being round didn't matter right now, there was only three of them, which meant that they were crowded to one side. Malachi sat between his grandmother and Persephone.

After they had all sat and passed the serving trays around, the real test could start

“So, Persephone,” Malachi's grandma began, and Persephone's eyes snapped to her, “Malachi's told me that you do quite well in school.”

An open-ended statement. Persephone knew this was a question without a question mark. She wondered if she was making herself more on edge than she needed to be.

“Uh, yeah. I mean, I try.” She answered shakily.

“She does really well in school, mama,” Malachi added.

Persephone nodded, an unspoken ‘thank you.’

Grandma smiled. “My Malachi's grades have even gone up since he met you. I think I should thank you for that.”

Persephone laughed quietly. “You don't have to thank me. He's the one who raised his own grades.”

“Maybe, but he does go to the library every weekend now because of you.”

Persephone looked to Malachi, who smiled back.

“After the first time, he came back and asked me where his library card was. We stopped going when he reached junior high, but I kept it just in case.”

“From when he was a kid?”

“Oh, yes. It had his name on it that he wrote when he was five. The ‘h’ was backwards and everything.”

“It's not like I really knew how to write when I was five.”

“Can I see it?” Persephone asked.

Malachi put his fork down and dug his wallet of his pocket. He pulled cards out at random until he found the one he wanted and handed it to Persephone.

She held it in her hands, amused by the older style of the card and the childlike handwriting that made up his name. That she was holding something he once held when he was little was funny, he was so much older and taller now. He still had terrible handwriting, but at least the ‘h’ faced in the right direction. She smiled and handed it back.

“You should have seen him back then, he'd run around from shelf to shelf trying to read everything. He wanted to bring huge books home so he could pretend be was reading them.”

“Hey, in my mind I wasn't pretending.”

She waved him off. “He would take the book and pretend like he was an adult and if I bothered him he told me he had ‘Very important business.’” She laughed.

Persephone couldn't help but laugh too.

Malachi rolled bis eyes and laughed. “It was important business, I had to read a big book.”

“That stopped when you hit junior high though.”

“Why? Persephone asked.

Grandma shrugged.

Persephone turned to Malachi.

“Well… it's ‘not cool’ for boys to read in junior high, you know. The other boys make fun of you if you do and say you're a girl.”

“That's why you stopped?” Grandma asked. “Mijito, you never told me that.”

“Obviously I couldn’t tell you at the time, you wouldn’t have understood. I didn't totally understand why it was happening.”

“Peer pressure is a weird thing,” Persephone added, trying to help him.

Malachi nodded.

“Well!” Grandma said, accompanied by a slap to the table. “You're reading again and that’s good enough for me.”

Malachi laughed which prompted Persephone to laugh

“Why do you go to the library, Persephone?”

“Uh, um, to study mostly. If I finish studying then I might read for fun, though I tend to get sidetracked by this guy,” she gestured at Malachi who smiled.

“What do you normally study?”

“I’m taking an AP Ecology class and I want to get a five in it.”

“Five?”

“Five is the highest grade you can get in an AP. Like an A.”

“Ahh.”

“I want to use it to help me get into a good college.”

“What do you plan on studying?”

“I think either Biology or Ecology.”

“You like them both?”

“Well.. They have a lot to do with each other, I guess. You need to have a pretty good understanding of biology to understand ecology.”

“What will you do with it?”

She shrugged. “I’m not sure yet. There’re so many things I can do. Work for a place like a zoo or a botanical garden, I could work for the Parks Department, I could be some kind of inspector who makes sure that big projects like cleaning up waste sites are going well, or I can inspect water quality in homes.”

Grandma’s attention was completely on Persephone, her fork down on her plate.

“I—uh… there’s so much to choose from.”

Grandma nodded. “It can be difficult when you feel you have a lot of choices that all seem like good ones.”

Persephone nodded and went back to her food.

They ate in silence for a few minutes before Malachi, unsure of whether Persephone was nervous or not, decided to break it.

“Mama, did you finish your blanket today?”

“Not yet. I had to do the bills earlier, but I think I can finish it tomorrow.”

Malachi turned to Persephone. “My grandma’s been knitting a blanket and it’s almost done.”

“Really? That’s cool. My mom’s mom died a while ago and my dad’s mom… we haven’t seen her in a while, so I never had a grandma who knits.”

“It’s not hard. You could learn to do it yourself if you like.”

She chuckled. “I don’t know. I don’t really have the money for things.”

“I can show it to you the blanket after dinner.”

* * *

 

It was quite a nice blanket. It had been knit in shades of pinks and greens and went through a few patterns, like braids, chevrons, and scales. It was a hodge-podge of squares, stripes, and other shapes that, despite the overabundance of color, texture, and shape, somehow all worked together.

“It’s really beautiful.” Persephone said.

“Thank you,” Grandma said as she held it up to look at one more time, and then folded it and placed it back on the arm of her ‘knitting’ chair, the only chair in the living room that had her knitting basket right next to it. “I’ve been working on it for a while.”

“How long?”

“Almost a year, right mama?” Malachi asked.

She smiled. “A year seems right.”

“It’s a year well spent,” Persephone said.

“Now, you kids go out. I’m sure you don’t want to hang around an old woman all night.” She sat down in the chair and readjusted the blanket. She pulled a paper out of the basket that was scribbled with who knew what kind of cryptic writing that served as instructions for her knitting.

“No—” Persephone started.

“Mama, don’t be silly,” Malachi retorted. “We’d love to hang out with you.”

Persephone smiled and nodded.

“Well, I want to watch my stories, you can if you want.” And with that she grabbed the remote control and turned the TV on.

Malachi and Persephone stood awkwardly for a few moments before Malachi spoke.

“Mama, is it okay if Persephone and I hang out in my room?”

“Go ahead. But no funny business,” she pointed a finger, gnarled with time, at him.

“Of course not.” Malachi took Persephone’s hand and led her up to his room. He flicked the lights on. “So this is my room. Room meet Seph, Seph meet room.”

Persephone laughed and looked around as she stepped into the room. “I like your posters.”

Malachi looked at the many posters of bands he liked on the wall. There his mainstays that Persephone had expected from the patches on his clothing: Black Flag, The Deftones, Tool, Nine Inch Nails, Alice in Chains, and Nirvana. Then there were the ones she could have guessed, like Rollins Band, Bad Brains, System of a Down, Sum 41, and X-Ray Spex. There were also a bunch she hadn’t expected: Los Crudos, Limp Wrist, Celtic Frost, Wolves in the Throne Room, Scratch Acid, Massacre 68, My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult, Bathory, and Mastodon among many others. It was completely impossible to guess the original color of the walls for all the posters that were wallpapered all over them. From full sized posters to small ones, fliers, as well as band pictures, and tickets from shows plastered every inch of space. Some of them were from bands she liked, some of them she had heard of but never really listened to, and some were bands she had never heard of.

“Since you were coming over, I cleaned.” Malachi said proudly.

Persephone gave him a sideways look. “Shouldn’t you clean even if someone isn’t coming over?”

“I mean, I do. But that’s ‘clean enough for me’ which might not be ‘clean enough for you,’ so I cleaned more.”

“Ah,” Persephone nodded. As she continued to look around she noticed the door of an odd sort of closet that took up the corner of his room. “Is that where you shoved all the stuff you didn’t actually clean?”

He looked to the closet and back to her. “Well, yeah…” he almost whined, “But hey, the room is clean.”

“That’s not how you clean,” she laughed.

“I know. I’ll do better next time,” he said as he sat on the floor against his bed.

“Oh, I’m getting invited over again?” She asked as she joined him.

“If you want to come over. You’ve met my grandma, finally.”

“Only took you a year.”

They both laughed.

“In my defense, I was really worried you wouldn’t get along.”

“Why? She seems nice.”

“I don’t know. I guess because on TV people’s parents always hate their girlfriends or boyfriends and then ban them from seeing each other ever again.”

“And then they stab themselves and their family has no choice but to be friends because, ‘Wow, shit, okay, we really fucked up, huh?”

Malachi laughed.

“I guess Shakespeare has done a little more in influencing the world other than giving us the words ‘bedazzled’ and ‘swagger.’” She laughed.

Malachi looked at her. But not with the kind of expression that only implied that someone had seen someone else as they might see a mailbox or a leaf, he was really seeing her.

“What?” She asked, his slightly dumbfounded expression confusing her.

“Nothing.” He said quietly. “You just… you know so many things.”

“Hey, I go to the library, right? It’s basically the ‘nerd place.’”

Malachi laughed. Bashfully, in the way a boy whose crush has been discovered does.

“So what did you want to do up here? I hope not ‘make out’ that’d be kind of weird with your grandma home.”

“We could listen to some music before I have to drive you home.” Malachi offered, gesturing to a record player that was sitting on a table made from cinder blocks and a plank of wood. Under the table were crates with vinyl records in them, the ‘table’ only tall enough so the crates could be slid out from under and slid back in.

“Did you put that together yourself?” Persephone asked of the table.

“Yeah.”

“It’s very clever. Sure, I’d love to listen to some music.”

Malachi stood and slid the record crates out and Persephone joined him.

“We can listen to whatever you want.”

“Um… do you have anything by that band?” She pointed to the Wolves In The Throne Room poster. “That’s a nice poster, I want to see if they sound as good as that poster looks.”

Malachi looked where she was pointing and laughed. “Sure.”

He located the band’s album and held it up.

“Diadem of the 12 Stars?” Persephone read. “This band likes long titles for everything, don’t they?”

“Apparently,” Malachi said with a laugh as he pulled the record out and put it on. “The first song is called ‘Queen of the Borrowed Light.’”

Persephone sighed.

The gentle hush of the record persisted through a few rotations – a lack of information in the groove creating pure static – until the needle finally reached the music. The first song came on, gently strummed distorted guitars giving way to repetitive drumming and a wailing opening scream from the singer. Persephone was kind of hoping she could understand the words, but through all the screaming and the fact that the vocals seemed to be recorded in a way that made them seem quieter or further away, she couldn’t. Everything coalesced into a droning cacophony.

“Do you like them?”

“Um… yeah.”

“Do you know what he’s saying.”

“Mmmno.”

Malachi laughed and handed her the album sleeve so she could look at the lyrics.

“Yeah. This is not what I thought I was listening to,” she laughed.

“Yeah. They can be a bit harsh the first time you listen to them.”

She nodded. “I like the guitars though.”

“They have a lot of good riffs.”

The glitter of something metallic behind the crates caught her eye. She reached behind the crate and pulled the object out. “Is this your vest?”

“Oh yeah… I was wondering where it went. I must have shoved it behind there by accident when I organized my records last week.”

Persephone dusted the vest off and looked at the patches and studs. “Did you put all these on yourself?”

“Yeah. It took forever.”

“So then why is Alex making everyone’s coats? Why don’t you just make them.”

“I’m so glad no one else is here to hear you say that,” Malachi laughed. “Aside from the fact that neither of us wanted this in the first place? I don’t know if I can make that many jackets. It took me forever just to stud that.”

Persephone turned the jacket over and looked at the other side before handing it to him. “Still I think he needs a little help.”

“We can tell the others to help him out. They’ll probably listen to us.”

“Yeah… but we should tell people that they have to buy their own supplies. This way no one gets in a fight. You want a jacket, you have to pay for it.”

Malachi saluted her. “Ma’am, yes, ma’am.”

She swatted him.

He laughed.

She turned back to the record player and listened to the music for a moment. Now there seemed to be the voice of a woman singing… but she still couldn’t make out the words. She checked the album sleeve again to see what they might be.

“Can I ask you kind of a weird question?”

She looked up at him. “How weird?”

“It’s probably not that weird, but I don’t know why I never asked before.”

“Go ahead.”

“Why is your last name MacPherson? I mean, you’re—”

“Black?”

He nodded. “Sorry if that sounded stupid.”

She shook her head and laughed softly. “That was one of the nicer ways I’ve heard that question.”

Malachi nodded.

“But it’s an easy answer: my mom is black and my dad was white. Scottish, actually. MacPherson means ‘son of Pherson’ but I can’t remember what ‘Pherson’ means so,” she shrugged.

“Really?”

“Yep. My mom thinks it’s where I get my green eyes from, since hers are brown.”

“Huh.” The thought had never crossed his mind.

“Yeah.”

“Is… that why you haven’t seen your dad’s mom in a long time?”

Persephone shrugged. “My mom says it’s not the reason… but I don’t know. They sort of stopped talking to us right after his funeral, so…”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah. I think maybe it’s like… when you’re an adult and you’ve married someone you sort of expected to be nice to their family even if they’re assholes, but when you’re a kid you don’t have that filter and if someone is acting weird because you’re around, you definitely notice it.”

He nodded. “Sorry for asking.”

“Don’t be. Maybe one of my cousins on his side is going to show up in the future, and if you didn’t ask I’d have to explain why I’m related to a white person,” she laughed.

He laughed too. “Was your dad nice?”

“Dude, my dad was the coolest. He made me a tree house when I was little and he’d shovel up all the snow in our yard into a big pile so I could make an igloo and sometimes he’d bring me back stuff from the site he was working on.”

“Site?”

“He worked construction and would get called away to work on the subway tunnels in New York City for long periods of time, so he’d bring me rocks like, ‘this rock is from fifty feet below the city, this rock is from a hundred feet below the city,’ and I would keep them in a box with a label saying how deep they were from.”

“Do you still have them?”

“Of course. They’re in a box in my closet.”

Malachi nodded. “That’s cool that you still have them.”

The music went back to the intelligible screaming, making Persephone wince. “What about you? Where does your last name come from?”

“Well, it’s Spanish, obviously.”

“Obviously.”

“But my dad was from Venezuela, and my mom was Mexican. I mean, is. She’s still Mexican, she’s just not here.”

Persephone nodded.

“I mean, her family was from New Mexico right near the border and my grandma and she were both born in the US, so I guess that makes her an American with Mexican Heritage. My dad was from Venezuela but I think he finally became a citizen right before he left us.”

“Where did he go?”

Malachi sighed. “My mom used to tell me Florida, but I have no idea. I haven’t heard from him since he left. Sometimes I wonder if he just married her so he could become a citizen.”

“…Did you ever ask your grandmother if he did?”

“I did but she insisted I didn’t know what I was asking about.”

“Hmm… I wonder what the answer is maybe he loved her at first but then fell out of love.”

“Who the hell knows?” Malachi shrugged and turned back to the music.

Persephone watched him for a moment, wondering if he was enjoying it more than she was. She put the album sleeve down. “Do you… want to hear how my dad died?”

Malachi was shocked, he remembered that she told him he died in a work accident but he couldn’t – or maybe didn’t want to – imagine how he could have died.

“Um,” he asked quietly, “Do I want to know?”

Persephone shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Do you want to tell me?”

“…Yeah.”

“Go ahead,” he answered quietly.

“He died in a work accident.”

He nodded.

“He was working in this area that, I don’t know the name, but it was this spot underground where… imagine like a well shape, and trains from all different lines would pass through it at different angles and heights. It was like this well with train tracks running through it… kind of like Ker Plunk!, once you’ve put all the sticks in.”

Malachi blinked.

“What?”

“Somehow I did not imagine you telling me about your dad’s death would bring up Ker Plunk!…”

“Well, that’s what it looked like. Or at least, that’s how I heard it described when I was a kid.”

“Okay.”

“He was working on something, I think he was welding, and his safety harness gave out and he fell through the train tracks.”

Malachi’s face flashed through a few emotions, concern, terror, and sadness, before Persephone finished her story.

“He landed on his back on one of the train trestles between the tracks and it broke his neck. The people who were working with him went to get help as fast as they could, but it took so long for help to get to them because they had to shut down the trains so they could bring him up, that he had died before they could get him out of the subway.”

“Holy shit,” Malachi whispered.

Persephone nodded sadly. “I found the box of rocks earlier when I was looking for this dress, actually.”

Malachi could see her eyes beginning to tear, despite her looking down at the dress. It was when a tear fell onto her dress that he launched himself at her in an embrace. She desperately tried not to cry.

“Do you miss him?” He whispered as he hugged her.

She nodded and gave a weak “Mhm.”

“He sounds like he was a good guy. You were lucky you knew him.”

“I guess… I’m sorry your parents got divorced and your dad left. You must miss him.”

Now it was Malachi’s turn to have teary eyes. “Sometimes. And you don’t have to say sorry. You weren’t involved.”

Persephone pulled away. “You know, when people say they’re sorry about things they didn’t do, they’re expressing sorrow, not apologizing,” she laughed a small laugh.

Malachi wiped the tears she had been unsuccessfully trying to hold back off her face. “Well, thank you for empathizing with my grief.”

Persephone did the same for Malachi. “’Empathize’ is a good word.”

“What can I say? I go to the library. It’s the ‘nerd place.’”

Persephone laughed hoarsely, collapsing into Malachi’s arms. He held her and laughed as well.

“Life is so weird as a kid. You think everything is perfect and no bad things could possibly happen and you don’t know that things can suck.”

Malachi leaned his cheek on her head. “Normally kids have their lives ruined by finding out there’s no Santa Claus.”

Persephone laughed again.

“Babies.” He scoffed.

“If only everyone’s life were so free of death and—”

“—abandonment.”

She sighed. “Yeah.”

They held each other for a while longer, the music ending and the hush of the static filling the air as the needle had no choice but to read nothingness.

“Are we still going to the library tomorrow?” Malachi asked.

“Yeah.”

“I think I should get you home then. Plus, my grandma might get suspicious if we’ve been up here all night.”

“Yeah, I guess so.” Persephone sighed and pulled away, wiping her cheeks. “Do I look like I’ve been crying?”

He mused for a moment as he looked at her. Even with the tear streaked eyeliner, she was beautiful. He took care and smudged her eyeliner until it again looked like it hadn’t been cried through, but was closer to a smoky eye than before. “You’re perfect.”

She smiled.

“Do I?”

She took as much care in looking at him. His eyes were a little red from crying but not by much. She took his head and tilted it towards her, softly kissing both of his eyelids. “No.”

In return, he took her face in both hands and kissed her gently on the forehead.

She giggled softly and smiled.

“We should get going.”

“Yeah. Wait, what’s your grandma’s last name?”

“Romero. Why?” He stood and then helped her up.

She dusted off her dress. “I want to be polite.

Malachi cocked his head at her, checked that his keys were in his pocket and led the way downstairs.

* * *

 

“Mama,” Malachi called as he was at the door, “I’m taking Persephone home.”

“A few more minutes and I was going to check on you two,” she answered, not looking up from her knitting.

They both laughed nervously.

“I’ll see you in a bit,” he opened the door.

“Bye Mrs. Romero,” Persephone added with a little wave.

She looked up. “Bye honey. I hope you come back soon.”

“If Malachi invites me I will.”

“Drive safe you two.”

* * *

 

In no time at all they were back at Persephone’s house. Malachi parked in front of her house and turned off the engine.

“So… I think that went great.”

“We both freaked out for nothing.”

He laughed. “I was trying to keep my freaking out a secret since I didn’t want you to get more nervous.”

“Well, thank you for that, sir.” Persephone laughed.

Malachi moved in and kissed her, but the lurching of the front door of the house opening suddenly made them pull apart. Someone came running down the stairs.

“Mom?” Persephone got out of the car as fast as she could, with Malachi getting out on his side.

“Where have you been? I thought you were kidnapped!” Her mom ran up to her and hugged her tightly.

“Mom, why the hell did you think I was kidnapped?”

She pulled away and held her shoulders. “Because I got home and your room was such a mess I thought someone had taken you and robbed us.”

“…With all the doors locked?”

Her mom thought for a second.

“And only my room getting robbed?”

Her mom looked at her in confusion and then to Malachi, who waved, and then back to her. “You look nice. Who’s this?”

Persephone exhaled. “Mom, this is my boyfriend, Malachi. My room was a mess because I was deciding what to wear to meet his grandma.” Persephone was very happy that Malachi had also decided to dress up, as the black button-down shirt and black pants he was wearing wouldn’t tip her mom off that he actually dressed like her normally.

“Oh. Oh. I am so sorry, you must think I’m a nut. I’m Deandra, it’s nice to meet you.”

She held out her hand and he shook it. “Nice to meet you too Mrs. MacPherson.”

“Would you like to come inside? I can make coffee.”

“Mom, it’s ten P.M.”

“Well, I could stay up for a little longer and meet your boyfriend. If you just met his grandma then he should meet me.”

“Oh my god. Mom, we’re going inside and I’m making you Sleepytime Tea. You’re clearly running on fumes.” She forced her mom to turn back towards the house. “Did you eat dinner?”

“I had a snack.”

“You’re going to have dinner.” As her mom walked up the stairs, she turned to Malachi and whispered, “Meet me here at nine for the library.”

“Alright,” he smiled and gave her a peck on the cheek before she ran up the stairs to usher her yawning mother into the house.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will boys will be boys? And will girls have girltalk and pillowfights?
> 
> Word count: 5,218

Persephone locked the door behind her just as Malachi parked in front of her house. She bounded down the stairs in a way that could only be described as ‘if skipping downward were a thing.’ She smiled at him as she walked towards him, books in tow.

Malachi got out of his car and laughed at the sight of her.

“You seem awfully perky today,” he said.

“Why shouldn’t I be?”

“I didn’t say you shouldn’t be, I’m just surprised. Wasn’t your mom mad?”

“Nah, she just wasn’t thinking straight because she was so tired.”

“Did she really think you were kidnapped if all the doors were locked?” Malachi couldn’t help but laugh.

Persephone shrugged. “Like I said, she was _very_ tired.”

“So… she’s not mad about us dating?”

“Not at all. I explained who you were and how we met and she seems okay with it. She’s going tell me she needs to give me ‘The Talk,’ she’s going to be bad at it, it’s going to be awful. She does want to meet you though. Which I was hoping to avoid.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. She’s going to ask me things about my life and ask about you constantly. I’m going to have to keep updating her on my life. I kind of like not feeling like I’m being checked up on, you know?”

He laughed.

“She’s a bit of a helicopter parent when she’s actually around. Why is that funny?”

“That’s not what I was laughing at.”

“What were you—”

“’The Talk?’”

She sighed. “I don’t want to think about it.”

“The ‘ol sex talk.”

“Watch out, your grandma is going to do it to you one day.”

“My grandma made me watch NOVA when I was ten after I asked her where babies came from. I think I’m okay.”

“Oh god,” Persephone said, eyes wide as she imagined the horror.

“Ten-year-old me watching it like, ‘And then the penis becomes engorged with blood,’ wondering what that meant and if there was something wrong with me because mine was smaller than the one they showed using heat vision, and nothing like that had happened yet.”

“Oh,” Persephone said and blushed. Not how she thought her day was going to start.

“I mean, it’s bigger now. And everything’s in working order.” He laughed.

“Could we maybe not talk about your dick at nine in the morning?”

He laughed and put his arm around her. “Sorry.”

* * *

 

At the library, they both had more than a few books open around them. Persephone was working on her Ecology homework, while Malachi was finishing up his math homework so he could get to his first Crucible paper. He was hoping he could use a couple of books he found about the Red Scare to argue for why the book is obviously an allegory for why the Red Scare was such a terrifying time in American history, and why it was a shame that there didn’t seem to be a single movie adaptation that incorporated this at all.

Malachi saw Daniel out of the corner of his eye. He had obviously noticed them and though he was working, he was occasionally looking up to check on them. Malachi hoped he would hold off on bothering them for a few more minutes since he had finally started his paper and wanted to at least finish his opening paragraph before being interrupted.

No such luck.

“Hey guys,” Daniel said as he walked over. “How’s it going today? You looked super studious.”

Persephone looked up while Malachi tried to scribble his thought down before he forgot it.

“Hi, Daniel.” She greeted. “How are you?”

“Not bad, not bad. Are you ready for your literary fact for today?”

Persephone looked at Malachi who nodded. “Sure,” she closed her books, prompting Malachi to do the same.

Daniel sat. “Have you ever read Frankenstein?”

A smile spread across Persephone’s face. “Yes.”

“How much do you know about Mary Shelley?”

“Only a little bit.”

“You?” He directed at Malachi.

He shook his head. “Nothing.”

“Well, what would you say if I told you both that Mary is the superior Shelly?”

“I would ask why. I mean, I don’t like a lot of Percy’s poetry, but I figured that was just personal preference.” Persephone answered. She always wondered if it was because he was a guy as she didn’t much like Byron’s poetry either. She knew it wasn’t because they were dramatic because Mary was also dramatic, so perhaps it was just a difference of viewpoints.

Daniel nodded. “When Mary was 17, she, Percy, and her half-sister Claire Clairmont all ran away from her father’s home together. It seems pretty clear that Mary only had eyes for Percy, but that Percy wanted to start a kind of… ‘hippie commune’ of him and a bunch of women, with him obviously being the only man.”

Malachi was taken aback, and blinked.

“ _Wow_.” Persephone said.

“Remember, Percy believed in free love, and so did Mary because her mother and father also felt the same way. But Mary was more of the opinion that love should be uninhibited by class or station, while Percy seemed to be more about him loving a whole lot of ladies at the same time.”

Persephone laughed quietly. “Okay.”

“He also did some dumb shit, like being terrible with money and becoming friends with Lord Byron.”

She stifled a laugh.

“The way he died was, he decided to buy a boat and went sailing with a friend at night and died under mysterious circumstances. He wasn’t very well known in him lifetime and after he died, Mary was the one who kept publishing and publishing his books and that’s basically what made him so famous.”

“Huh,” Persephone looked to Malachi who shared a similar expression. “That's interesting. All I knew about her was the pop history stuff: her father taught her to read by tracing the letters of her mom’s name on her grave, she probably lost her virginity to Percy on her mom's grave, things like that.”

“She was kind of a wild woman,” Malachi said, impressed.

“She really was.”

Daniel continued, “Did you know that when Percy washed up on shore his body had to be burned because of quarantine regulations, but his heart was so calcified that it didn't burn? _And_ , she kept it for the rest of her life, wrapped up in a page from one of his books.”

“Goth,” Malachi couldn't help but add.

Persephone nodded.

Daniel smiled. “Hey, do you like the movie Frankenstein or just the book?”

“Of course I like both. But for different reasons.”

Malachi didn’t want to admit he had only seen the movie – not in front of Daniel at least – so he nodded.

“Well, the Twilight Drive-In is having a creature feature the Saturday before Halloween. It's all the old Universal Studios monsters: the mummy, the wolfman, Frankenstein, the whole crowd. It seems like fun.”

“Do they do that every year?”

“They normally do a theme marathon. Last year was Freddy vs Jason, and the year before was John Carpenter. And I think two years before that was Roger Corman? Sometimes the theme is vampires or werewolves or something.”

Malachi nodded. “Sounds cool. We’ll think about it.”

Daniel stood. “If you don’t mind, I need to get back to work.” And with that, he grabbed the nearest ‘Returns’ trolley and wheeled it into a Staff Only room.

“That one was pretty wild,” Persephone said as she opened her books back up.

“Yeah, trying to make a hippie commune with women who… don’t know they were about to be involved in a hippie commune?” He shook his head and opened his books. “Pretty ballsy if you ask me.”

Persephone laughed quietly.

“And pretty shady too.”

“We should go see the marathon. Frankenstein was one of my favorite books as a kid.”

“Really?”

She nodded. “I found it when I found the box of rocks my dad gave me.”

Malachi leaned forward and placed his hand on hers for a moment. She looked up at him and nodded that she was okay.

“Isn’t it kind of scary?”

“Mm… not really? It’s more dark and moody than it is scary. More like a gothic sci-fi then ‘ooh, look at this scary monster.’”

Malachi nodded as he thought. “I’ve only ever seen the movie so I have no idea what happens in the book.”

“Ohh, it’s a story of a man why tries to create life—”

“I know _that_.”

\--and he does. _But_ he’s terrified of what he creates and abandons his creature hoping he’ll die, but his creation learns from the people around him and becomes intelligent. The creature decides that if his creator abandoned him, he’ll completely ruin his life until he agrees to make him a mate.”

“The big hair screamy lady?”

“ _Elsa Lanchester_. Please, Malachi.”

Someone shushed them, as Persephone was becoming quite animated.

She lowered her voice and leaned closer. “She was never completed in the novel. Frankenstein – who was still a med student and not a doctor in the book – was so fearful of what could happen if they had kids that he destroyed her and his lab and fled to the Arctic to escape the creature. In the end, on his deathbed on a ship, the creature finds him and tells the man who was helping him that he only ever wanted to be loved, and that Frankenstein had only ever seen him as a monster.”

“…So the monster talked in the book?”

“Well, he wasn’t really a monster. He became a monster because of how he was treated. He didn’t start off that way. I mean, he’s definitely the antagonist, but he could have very easily not been.”

“But then there’d be no book.” Malachi pointed his pencil at her.

She pointed her pen at him. “Ah ha. It’s almost like conflict makes a story happen.”

Malachi laughed softly. “Stop it, you’re making me want to work on my Crucible paper.”

Persephone returned the laugh. “Go ahead, I need to finish my Ecology homework.”

“I’m so sorry for distracting you,” he said mockingly.

She narrowed her eyes at him but thought better of it and returned to her homework. Wondering how long Daniel had set her back for, she fished her phone out of her bag hoping to check the time.

She laughed and showed Malachi the phone's screen. “Look at this.”

The phone read 9am. He turned around to look at the clock on the wall, 11:14. “What the hell?” He whispered.

She shrugged and turned the phone off and then back on.

“Do you have service in here?”

“I normally do, but maybe I didn't for a few seconds and it got stuck--”

Her phone vibrated several times and moved a few centimeters as it rattled across the table.

Someone shushed them.

Persephone looked around for the serial shusher. Who actually shushed every time someone in a library was a tiny bit loud? She opened the phone and read the texts.

“Sophie’s asking where we are… these must be from last night.”

“How do you know?”

“Because she said the first band is about to go on. I'll have to show her later that I didn't get it.”

“You're seeing her later?”

“Yeah. She invited me and Violet over for a sleepover sort of against my will but...” She screwed up her face and crossed her eyes before putting her phone back in her bag and going back to her homework.

“Ohh… are you going to gossip about boys?”

Persephone kicked his foot, making his chair squeak.

Malachi laughed quietly.

“Do you want me to tell them how good of a kisser you are?”

“I want you to make them feel bad that the guys they're dating aren't like me.”

“I don’t think either of them are dating anyone.”

“Then make them jealous they’re not dating me.”

She kicked him again and this time her chair squeaked.

Someone shushed them.

Persephone looked around. “I know this is a library but that guy is out of control.”

Malachi tried not to laugh.

Persephone leaned in and whispered. “So what do you want me to tell them?”

“Oh, I was kidding.”

She lowered her voice so only he could hear her. “Do you want me to tell them how the time we were at Bleeker’s and you were kissing up my neck while your hands were between my legs, inching up my thighs?”

“Hey,” he said quietly, his cheeks going pink.

“Or I could mention the time we were making out in your car and your hands were on my boobs.”

He tapped her foot with his gently and looked at her sternly. An expression that didn’t look nearly as stern as he thought it was since the color on his cheeks was getting darker.

“Or the time—”

“Okay,” he whispered harshly, “I get it.”

She laughed quietly, “That’s what you get for this morning,” and returned to her homework.

Malachi shifted in his seat, wondering how he was going to concentrated on his paper.

* * *

 

“Yes, ladies and… lady and lady? The time is now, the hour is here, the day is done, the moon is up. It's here, it's happening, it's Sophie’s famous,” Sophie made loud ‘Buh-bum buh-bum’ drum sounds mouth as she raised the three DVDs into the air over her head. Persephone and Violet watched her, Persephone with her cheek pointedly resting on her hand, and Violet actually paying attention. “Triple Feature! _Bah-nahhhhh!_ ”

Violet clapped softly.

Persephone followed suit and clapped as well, but t was as sarcastic as clapping could be. “Stanley Kubrick would be jealous of your soundtrack.”

“Movie the first, a jaunt with a lovely house and a terrible mid-90s soundtrack. Two sisters suffer a family curse, but then they suffer more when they try to cheat death. Starring the adorable Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman: Practical Magic.”

“I've always wanted that house,” Persephone said as Sophie handed her the DVD.

Violet nodded.

Next, we have something a little darker, a coming of age tale of four teenage girls who are all witches. Three have been looking for a last member for their coven, but will the fourth bring true power? Will they use their powers for good? Or evil? And why is Fauriza Balk such a style icon? _And_ can I have her wardrobe, please? I present to you: The Craft.”

Persephone nodded as Sophie handed her the second movie, and she handed the first to Violet. Both good picks so far.

“And last, we have a movie, almost like a late age coming of age. Three women who have been wronged by men in the past discover they are much more powerful than they thought. Cher, Susan Sarandon, and Michelle Pfeiffer act their skinny little asses off, and wear some really amazing 1980s wigs. Jack Nicholson says the word ‘pussy’ and it makes everyone in the audience wish they were _dead_. By the director of Mad Max, for your viewing pleasure: The Witches of Eastwick.”

“George Miller directed this?” Persephone asked as Sophie handed her the last movie. She flipped itt over and looked at the credits.

“Yep. And Babe: Pig in the City.”

“What the fuck?” She asked with a laugh. “I had no idea.”

Sophie sat, butt back on her heels. “So what do you think?”

“I like your choices. The ‘creature feature’ of witch movies. I'm not sure what to call it.

“A Bunch of Badass Ladies Casting Spells?”

“That's… literally the worst name, but okay.”

Sophie laughed and put the Practical Magic DVD in the DVD player.

“Ooh!” Sophie said as she furiously hit the forward button on the remote, trying to skip the ads and other trailers as fast as she could. “Coven Feature. No ,The Covening. Night of the Living Coven.”

“They just get better and better as you come up with them,” Persephone laughed.

“The Witching Hour,” Violet said quietly.

“Heeey,” Sophie pointed at her, ,happy at the name and also getting to the DVD menu _finally_. She started the movie.

Persephone continued looking at the DVD cases. “You know what I just realized?”

“What's up?”

“Out of these three movies, Rochelle is the _only_ black person I can remember from any of them. And it’s a fucking shame too because I happen to like these movies.”

“Oh yeah. You're lucky though, there isn't a single Latina in any of these movies, so I just don't exist.” She laughed sarcastically.

Sophie looked at Violet.

Violet’s eyes widened as she looked at both of them. “What?”

“She doesn’t know,” Persephone said.

“You’re so lucky,” Sophie said with a shake of her head and sat between them.

* * *

 

Persephone was happy that they had made it through the first movie without any ‘girl talk.’ There was just something about being expected to talk about her love like that made her nervous, and the worst part was that she wasn’t sure what it was. Unfortunately, at some point during their viewing of The Craft, the topic came up.

“Don’t let guys fool you into thinking that their emotionally stunted bullshit is okay, Violet,” Sophie said as she leaned back on her elbows, the bowl of popcorn balanced on her stomach. “I’ve _read_ the studies. Boys are just raised with no expectation of being emotionally available and really, they’re taught to suppress emotions other than anger. Women end up having to do all the emotional labor in a relationship. Why do you think the divorce rate is so high?”

“I thought men and women were just… different.” Violet said, unsure. Violet said everything as if she were unsure of her own opinion.

“Don't give me that ‘Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus’ shit. My mom is a sex therapist, okay? Men and women are only psychologically different in that most men want to date someone who can be their lover and mother, while women want an equal.”

“I don't know much about the first one, but the second one is right.” Persephone added.

“Never date a guy who wants you to babysit him and help him grow emotionally, if you have to take care of yourself, he has to take care of himself.”

Persephone nodded. “Your mom is a sex therapist?”

“Well, she's a relationship counselor and a sex therapist, but she said that most of her clients come to her for help with their sex lives since like… if you're married to a selfish person it's a whole lot easier to ignore them not doing the dishes than them not making you cum.”

Violet spat out her drink.

“Wow, thanks.” Sophie said and stood to get a towel from her bathroom.

“Sorry. I didn't expect you to say something like that.”

“I just said my mom was a sex therapist, why wouldn't I say something like that?” Sophie laughed and handed her the towel.

Violet mopped up her drink. “Are men really that emotionally stunted?”

Sophie sat back down. “From what my mom says, yeah.”

“I thought doctor-patient confidentiality was a thing in therapy as well as internal medicine,” Persephone said with a raised eyebrow.

“I'm her kid,” Sophie shrugged. “It's not like I can get her in trouble. Plus, I ask her stuff to help me at work.”

Persephone leaned in close. “And where _do_ you work?”

Sophie got up again and put the towel back in the bathroom and then grabbed her wallet. She grabbed two business cards and handed one to each of her friends.

Violet gasped and covered her mouth.

“Holy shit,” Persephone said matter-of-factly.

The cards, which showed a pair of pink fuzzy handcuffs and a riding crop, read ‘Nightcap: For those who need a little something before bed.’

“What. The fuck.” Persephone said as a wry smile spread across her face and she began laughing. “No way.”

Sophie nodded.

Persephone punched her in the arm. “No _way_ , dude!”

Sophie laughed and rubbed her arm. “ _Yes_ way, dude.”

Violet pulled her hand away enough so she could ask, “You _really_ work there?”

“I _really_ work there.”

“But _how_ ,” Persephone asked. “How did you convince them to hire teenager? There has to be some kind of law.”

“There isn't - at least I don't think there isn't - but the owner knows my mom. You'd be surprised how many clean-cut housewives from Riverdale go to my mom for help and then my job for ‘something new for the bedroom.’” She did her best to imitate the white, middle-aged mom voice she had heard so many times. “‘Oh, do you have any,’” she got closer, “‘fuzzy handcuffs? My husband and I were thinking of getting adventurous.’” She laughed.

“Wow, really?” Persephone asked.

“Oh my god, man. So many times. The best is when they're repeat customers and they just buy more and more intense shit as it goes on but they get weirder and weirder about it. Like, just ask me where the dildos and the nipple clamps are, I really don't care what you're planning on doing with any of it.”

Persephone chuckled, and Violet had overcome her shock enough to smile.

“You guys can keep those if you want.”

Violet blushed and handed the business card back.

“Or not,” Sophie added with a chuckle as violet turned away.

“You keeping yours?” Sophie asked Persephone.

“Uh, I don't know. I've never really thought about any of this stuff before.”

“Hey, if you're going to go with the Mad Max studded leather jackets, you might as well go full Mad Max: 2 and get all the BDSM shit.”

Persephone frowned before she remembered her conversation with Malachi yesterday.

“Thanks for reminding me. I'm telling you guys this first because I feel like, we're a little closer to you than everyone else, but Malachi and I think that: if someone wants a jacket they should pay for it and help Alex put it together. It's not fair to him if he's not getting paid and has to somehow buy all the supplies.”

“Oh, yeah, no doubt,” Sophie nodded.

Violet turned back and nodded as well.

“Look at you, giving orders, being in command.”

“If someone is going to put me in charge of a group of people, then goddammit, they are going to act like a real community.”

Sophie then added, “Way to change the subject, though.”

Persephone rolled her eyes. “I don't know how into any of this I am, or would be. I've never tried any of this before,” she said as she waved the card around.

“Have you guys ever had sex?”

Persephone tried to stop it, but she felt her face go red. “No.”

“How come?” Violet asked.

“We just haven't. I don't know how he feels about it, but I'm fine not having sex right now. We still make out and stuff, were not weird Christians who have to wear purity rings and sign a paper saying we'll never do anything before marriage.”

Sophie laughed. “So that ring isn't a purity ring then?”

Persephone froze for a moment.

“I always see you wearing it.”

“Malachi gave it to me.”

“Is it a promise ring?” Violet asked.

“Yeah.”

“What did he promise?”

Sophie looked from Violet to Persephone.

“It's for… we promised to stay together all through high school.”

“Are you going to get married after high school?”

Before Persephone could answer, Sophie interrupted. “Come on, of _course_ they're getting married after high school.”

Persephone blushed again.

Sophie got up to put The Witches of Eastwick in the DVD player. “They're always together, always making goo goo eyes at each other. They go to Bleeker's every Friday like an old couple. They're practically married already,” she laughed.

Seeing an opening, Persephone took it. “How was the show yesterday?”

“Uh, it was fine,” Sophie said.

“There was a fight,” Violet offered.

Persephone thought for a moment that she might not have heard correctly. “...What? There hasn't been a fight in the entire year Malachi and I have been going there.”

“Vi,” Sophie said through gritted teeth, “I thought we agreed not to bring this up.”

Violet shrunk away.

“No, tell me what happened. If I'm going to be your leader, then I need to know what's going on, right?”

“Take me to you leader,” Sophie said in an alien voice and laughed.

Neither Persephone nor Violet joined her in laughing.

Sophie sighed.

“Liam got into a fight with the guitarist from Bad Sex.” Violet offered.

“Damon?”

“Is that his name?” Sophie asked.

“Yeah, Mal and I met him once. The dude is seriously weird. What was the fight about?”

Violet pointedly looked at Sophie, who rolled her eyes.

Persephone looked between the two of them a few times before asking, “Okay, what do these looks mean? Someone start explaining.”

Sophie rolled her eyes again and looked away. “They might have gotten into an argument… over me.”

“What? Why?”

“Damon was talking to Sophie and Liam didn't like that—” Violet started.

“No,” Sophie stopped her, “Okay? I was standing there with Violet and Alex talking about where you and Malachi might have been, and I decided to text you. Thanks for answering, by the way.”

“I was at Malachi's meeting his grandma,” she pulled her phone out of her bag and opened their text messages. “Look at the time stamps.”

Sophie looked at the arrival times on her texts. “What the fuck?”

“I didn't get any of them until I restarted my phone earlier.”

“Ugh,” Sophie sighed. “Whatever. But we were standing there discussing where you guys were, and then Damon walked over. Alex said he wanted to get a drink so he and Violet left--”

Violet nodded at this.

“--And Damon was just talking to me about nothing. Like, fucking nonsense. He asked if I was there to see his band, he asked where you and Mal were; he was just being weird. Then Liam comes over.”

“I think he was worried about you,” Violet tried to help.

“He didn't have to be. I was already telling Damon to kindly fuck off, he didn't have to walk over and escalate shit.”

“What happened?” Persephone asked.

. “What do you think happened?” She sighed

“Well you already told me they got in a fight so I’m going to guess that.”

“Liam raised his voice, then Damon got in his face and Liam shoved him. The next thing you know, they were brawling and the bouncers dragged them outside.”

“They made Liam leave,” Violet added.

“Yeah, well, I think they only let Damon stay because his band hadn't gone on yet and they seem to have the biggest draw.”

Persephone sighed. “I have to tell Mal about this.”

“Why?”

“Because a whole bunch of _someones_ wanted us to lead them into who knows what.” She selected his house number from her contacts list and held the phone up to her ear. The call dropped after ringing once and she checked the screen. She gestured to the door of the small balcony that was attached to Sophie’s room. “Is it cool if I hang out there for a second?”

“Yeah,” Sophie stood and unlocked the door for her.

“Thanks.”

She stepped out onto the balcony and dialed the number again, every time it rang and wasn’t picked up making her paranoid that the call would drop again.

“Hello?”

“Hi, grandma. It’s Persephone. Is Mal home?”

“Hold on, honey.”

As she unsuccessfully held her hand over the phone to cover her loudly yelling for her grandson, Persephone started to wish she had taken Spanish as her language instead of French. She figured that Riverdale’s proximity to Canada would make it the most useful, but maybe not from a practically standpoint.

“He's coming down,” his grandmother said and Persephone could hear the phone rustle as it was laid onto the counter.

More shuffling as he picked up the phone.

“Hello?”

“Hey. I need to tell you about something that happened with… ‘the group.’ Can you go into another room?”

“This is a corded phone,” he whispered back. He looked at his grandmother who was busy making dinner while Leo stared at her, and stood on the other side of the wall. “Why, what's up?”

“Sophie and Violet just told me that Liam got into a fight with Damon at Bleeker’s last night.”

“What? Over what?”

“Damon was trying to talk to Sophie and apparently Liam didn’t like that.”

Malachi thought a moment and sighed. “I know why.”

“Okay, well, can you say something to him? I don't want people thinking their invincible and getting into fights because they're in a gang. And I don't want us getting kicked out of Bleeker's. What the fuck else are we going to do on a Friday night?”

“Yeah, I'll see him in Auto on Monday. Did Sophie say what Damon was talking to her about?”

“He asked her if she was there to see Bad Sex and then he asked her where we were. She said she was telling him to leave when Liam walked over guns blazing.”

“He asked her where we were?”

“Yeah, idk. We must have offended him by leaving last time.” She laughed.

“Maybe he was upset we weren't there so he could stare at us.” Malachi returned the laugh.

“Ugh, dude, he is _so_ creepy.”

“He is. Okay, I have to go set the table, but I'll talk to him on Monday, okay?”

“Okay. No more fights.”

“No more fights. Love you.”

“Love you.”

Persephone ended the call and went back inside.

“He said he's going to talk to Liam on Monday.” She sat back down.

Sophie and Violet nodded.

“What about Damon?” Sophie asked.

“What _about_ Damon?”

“What are we going to do about him? The dude is weird.”

“He definitely is… but he's not one of us, so I doubt talking to him is going to do any good.”

“What if he joined us? Violet asked.

Persephone couldn’t help but let her emotions have full range of her face, and deeply furrowed her brow at the suggestion. “Why would he join us?”

“Well,” Violet shifted uncomfortably, “he’s in a band, so that’s cool. And he’s older, so that will make us look cool.” [IS HE OUT OF HS AT THIS POINT?]

“I don’t… I don’t understand what you’re saying. How will having someone who’s like two years older make us ‘cool’? The guy’s a dickhead.”

“I think his band’s cool.”

“They’re honestly shit.”

“Lots of people like them…”

“Yeah, and a lot of people are in the KKK but numbers don’t make them right.” She sat, slightly angrily as she shoved her phone back into her bag. “Okay, one, this group thing is not a concerted effort to find new people, okay? We’re not Jehova’s Witnesses. If people we know want to join, or I should say ‘join?’” She air-quoted the word to show that there was a difference she had no intention of having rituals that people had to go through to get in. “Then we’ll let them. But we’re not going around looking for new people, okay?”

Violet nodded. Persephone turned to Sophie who nodded as if it was something she knew already.

“Two, if we were going to convince _anyone_ to join, it sure as hell wouldn’t fucking be Damon.”


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Minor fallout, major plans. Well, major if you’re trying to build a community.
> 
> Word count: 3,467
> 
> Also, guys: I'm thinking of taking a "break" during NaNoWriMo in which my break is me writing lots of things (I hope) and then not having to come up with words once a week or every other week. Also, the plot needs to be ironed out and I might rewrite some of it because it seems to be lagging right now and there are a few short chapters I feel could at least be mushed into one longer chapter.  
> So I might do NaNo and work on this fic and the Loki one I've started because I like my writing style a lot in that one (v. sassy) and I think it could be fun (like, if it finds a plot).

The auto mechanics wing of the school had its own locker room. Not that this was something appreciated by most of the teen-aged boys who used it but, like the gym locker room, had rows of lockers with benches but was smaller owing to the smaller volume of students who would use it. It also had showers, as the occasional oil mishap might result in someone needing to shower it off with foul-smelling, oil-removing soap and change their clothes.

That’s happened a few times.

But not to Malachi, who was currently the only person in the locker room and changing into his coveralls. He had always chalked it up to his being mostly raised by his grandmother, being raised by someone older must have made him a more cautious person in general. He smiled to himself at the irony of the past year, even he had to admit that he had fallen in love with Persephone so hard that it had him reeling. 

It was quiet times like now alone in the locker room, any noise he made gently echoing off the lockers and cement walls like an urban song, where his mind naturally turned to her. He had known since the first time they passed notes that he was fortunate that the girl he had immediately fallen for had found his – even he would admit – intense emotions. _Overly fortunate_ , was probably more accurate because he wasn’t even sure if would have stayed to listen to a girl who had felt that strongly about him after only a week. He laughed quietly to himself, as his feelings had taken even him by surprise, he was man enough to admit that. He was probably _extremely_ lucky that she didn’t just turn on her heel and run in the other direction as fast as she could. In fact, now that he had a year of space between those moments and where he was now, he didn’t really think his behavior warranted being taken so seriously.

But he was grateful she did.

He finished pulling his coveralls on, and pushed the rest of his stuff into his locker, making sure to hold on to a notebook and a pen in case the teacher decided to go over something during class.

Now he felt the need to make it up to her. Maybe he could show her that he should have acted less like an excited child and more like a grown-ass-adult. Yeah, he wasn't a grown-ass- adult yet, but he was a year older than her and should have been acting more mature at the time. Maybe a homemade dinner, just the two of them.

He turned when he heard the door open.

It was Liam.

“Hey man, how’s it goin’?” Liam asked as he came in. He put his stuff down on the bench near his locker and started trying his combination.

“Hey,” Malachi watched him for a moment as Liam offered nothing else. “So uh, how was the show on Friday?”

“Yeah, where were you guys?” Liam pulled on the lock and it didn’t open. He sighed and started over.

“I took Persephone to my house to meet my grandma.”

“Oh really?”

“Yeah.”

“Does she like her?” He pulled again and it didn’t give. He started over.

“Yeah, she likes her a lot actually.” Malachi waited, hoping that Liam would say something and he wouldn’t have to pry.

Liam cursed under his breath as the lock didn’t open again and started over.

He guessed he would have to pry. “You didn’t say how the show was.”

Liam shrugged, his attention on the lock. “It was fine.”

Malachi nodded. “What about the fight?”

Liam pulled on the lock and it snapped open, and at the same time he turned to look at Malachi.

Malachi impassively looked back, sitting on the bench.

“Uh,” Liam pulled his coveralls out and some of the contents of his locker fell to the floor, he stooped to pick them up. “How did you know about it?”

“Sophie told Seph and Seph told me.”

Liam closed his eyes and sighed.

“You guys wanted leaders,” Malachi shrugged.

“Does that mean you’re here to lead?” Liam said, almost mockingly.

“No, but I think a leader would give a shit about someone, that’s why people want them in charge.”

Liam shoved the things he didn’t need into his locker.

“I give a shit, Liam. What the fuck happened?”

Liam paused. “Did they tell you what happened?”

“Yeah, but I’d like to hear your side.”

He finished pushing all his stuff into his locker and closed it. “The guitarist of Bad Sex… he was bothering her.”

“Bothering Sophie, you mean.”

“Yeah.” Liam took off his shoes and pulled his coveralls on. “Like, he’s weird and kinda shitty and I didn’t like that he was talking to her so I said something.”

“Why didn’t you like that he was talking to her?” Malachi folded his arms in front of his chest.

Liam shrugged as he pulled his coveralls over his shoulders.

Malachi looked at him sternly.

Liam sighed. “It’s just… he’s just such _shit_ and—”

Malachi shook his head.

Liam looked at him, stunned by the reaction. “Okay, fine,” he zipped his coveralls and sat on the bench. “I like her. And he was just talking to her and like… what if she likes him?”

“What if she does? You can’t control _who_ she likes.”

“I guess but… I want her to like me.” The last of his sentence came at almost a whisper.

For a moment Malachi felt like he and Liam were similar. Similar but different. When Malachi realized he might have feelings for Persephone, he had never thought to fight anyone else who talked to her. Even Damon himself, the exact person at the center of this situation. Maybe Liam’s parents had never taught him to deal with intense feelings like having a crush, or maybe Malachi’s grandmother had succeeded in that respect. It was clear to him that they both had strong feelings, but had chosen to go about them differently.

Before Malachi could offer any advice, the door opened and the rest of their class poured into the room chatting about whatever TV show or sports game had happened over the weekend.

Malachi stood and walked into the garage, Liam followed behind him.

“Listen,” Malachi said after setting his notebook down on the hood of the car they had been working on since the start of the school year, “You seem to like her, but you can’t just fight dudes because they seem to like her as well.”

“I just… got so mad.”

“I get that, but all you did was make yourself look like an asshole.”

“…She said that?”

“She didn’t have to, the fact that she wasn’t swooning all over you as you were being pulled out of the club said enough. Girls don’t like when you do stupid movie shit like get into fights over them or tell them what to do.”

“Persephone doesn’t like that?”

“If I got into a fight with another guy over her…” he thought for a moment. “She’d leave. She’d just walk out of whatever building we were standing in and go home. She has no tolerance for bullshit, she has shit to do.”

Liam nodded. “I guess maybe Sophie is kind of the same way.”

“We hang out with some… strong, determined women, dude. Getting into a fight with another guy over her, she’s not going to think much of you afterwards.”

Liam looked at Malachi, eyes wide with shock. “Does she hate me?”

“Seph didn’t say. But from the tone of her voice, I don’t think she’d be trying to ask you out any time soon.”

Liam sighed and dragged his palm down the length of his face. “Ugh. This totally went to shit.”

“What did?”

“Trying to impress her? I’m not sure what I was doing. Mostly, I think I was trying to get that guitarist away from her.”

“His name is Damon, by the way.”

Liam nodded absentmindedly.

Malachi waited for some kind of response.

“How did you manage to impress Persephone so you could ask her out?”

“I don't think I impressed her, really. I talked to her like she was a human. Which she is, so it wasn’t hard.” He smiled.

Liam smiled nervously. “I was hoping you could tell me what you know that you managed to get a girl like her.”

“Nothing different from the last time you asked me.”

Liam nodded.

Malachi wasn’t sure what other help he could offer. It was just as well that their conversation seemed to be over, since the other boys in their class began to file in from the locker room. Malachi moved closer and spoke quietly so as not to attract the potential mockery – friendly or otherwise – of their classmates.

“Listen, I can't help you ‘get’ her, I don't think that's a thing outside of romcoms. Just ask her out, if it turns out she doesn't want to be with you…” he shrugged, “then find someone who does.”

Liam nodded as their teacher walked into the room, shouting over the excited boys who were joking and horsing around.

“All right, men. We have a short lecture today and then you can get right back to work on your cars. And Michaels, if I see you rolling around on the creepers for fun again I _will_ give you detention!”

* * *

 

At lunch time the group had settled into their familiar spots at their lunch table. Malachi and Persephone next to each other closer to one end of the table and Sophie next to Persephone. Liam, who on account of knowing Malachi well had recently decided that he would sit with the gang’s ‘official/unofficial’ leaders at their end of the table instead of sitting at the opposite end like he had originally. Malachi understood now that this wasn’t _just_ because of their friendship, as Liam’s crush would have him behave like any lovesick boy, following his interest around. He wondered if he should be more like he was being used now that the secret was out but decided that, hey, he was the same when he met Persephone. He couldn’t really blame him.

“Do we know where Alex is?” Persephone asked.

Malachi chewed as he shook his head. Sophie and Liam shrugged.

“I’m texting him. He better not be missing school to make more jackets.” She took her phone out of her bag and turned it on, she busied herself with her lunch as she waited for it to finish starting up and then texted Alex with a sternly worded question about where he was.

“So,” Malachi began as he leaned his chin on his hand, “how was your sleepover?”

“Oh you know…” Sophie said “we braided each other’s hair and talked about boys.”

“We started a coven,” Persephone added, “did some spells.”

“Oh, you're witches now?”

“Could be.”

“Then you must have cast a spell on me,” he kissed her cheek as she laughed.

“Ew… mom and dad are kissing.”

Persephone flicked a mustard packet at Sophie.

“Ugh! You couldn't throw a ketchup packet at me? I need one.”

“That's why you didn't get one!” She laughed.

Sophie laughed as well. someone handed her a ketchup packet from their tray. She turned to see who it was: Liam. Sophie took the packet but didn't say anything.

“Hey…” Liam said sheepishly.

Sophie looked at him for a moment. She opened the ketchup and squeezed it out onto her lunch tray and rolled up the remaining tin packet. The placed it next to her milk carton, took a fry and stabbed it into the ketchup pile and looked at him and she chewed. “Hey.”

Liam laughed nervously as she continued to eat her fries as she stared at him. He looked at Persephone and Malachi, who were watching this interaction before they very obviously pretended they weren’t looking and turned towards each other.

“Uh, would I be able to talk to you alone?”

“What for?”

Persephone looked at Malachi as if silently asking if he knew what was going on. He answered by turning his body all the way towards her and smiling, such love in his eyes that made her thankful for him but also annoyed that he either didn’t know or refused to tell her what was going on. Nonetheless she responded by turning more towards him. Now it looked like they were canoodling in their own little world, though Persephone was still trying to listen to what Liam and Sophie were saying. Malachi thought he had a pretty good idea and wanted to ignore it for now.

“I just wanted to talk to you about something.”

“And we can't do that here?”

Liam shifted and lowered his voice. “It's kind of private.”

Sophie raised an eyebrow. “So where do you want to talk that's ‘private?’” she asked.

Liam looked around. There was an odd corner of the cafeteria that had nothing going on. By virtue of the room layout coupled with how long each table was, it was sufficiently away from any eavesdropping ears. He nodded towards the corner, which thankfully had no people standing in it at the moment. “What about over there?”

Sophie followed his eyes. She ate another fry and chewing, stood and said, “Sure,” before making her way over to the corner leaving Liam to catch up. She wanted to get it whatever it was over with.

Persephone turned and watched them as they both left before turning to Malachi. “What was all that about?”

Malachi took another bite of his burger. “I'm not a hundred percent, but I have an idea.”

Persephone looked at him with an exaggerated expression of curiosity. “You're not going to tell me?”

Malachi looked at her for a moment before moving in close, whispering so no one else could hear. “Apparently Liam has a thing for Sophie.”

Persephone gasped, “No.”

He nodded.

Persephone looked to where Liam and Sophie were standing, Liam’s posture making him appear shy and almost embarrassed, and Sophie standing there with her arms folded. “I never would have guessed.”

“Well you _are_ adorably oblivious sometimes,” Malachi said with a chuckle.

“Hey.” Persephone gave him a light smack against his chest. “But I guess that make sense considering the fight… how did you find out?”

“He told me earlier.”

“And you told him to talk to her?”

“I told him that if he thinks he liked her so much, he should ask her out. If she doesn't like him, he should find someone else. I guess he actually took it to heart.”

Persephone nodded as she looked at the two, trying to figure out how their conversation was going. “I not surprised that was your advice. You were pretty forthright when you asked me out.”

Malachi smiled.

“I appreciate a man who knows what he wants and actually tries to get it.”

Malachi took advantage of their close proximity to whisper again. “To say that I knew I wanted you would be the biggest understatement. Understatement of the century.”

Persephone blushed.

He leaned his cheek against hers. “Look at you, flustered again. It’s almost too easy.”

Persephone giggled quietly.

“Can you believe it’s been a year?”

Persephone pulled away. “I saw the calendar and like… I hadn’t even realized we had passed a year until after it happened. We should have done something.”

“Well, we still could. We don’t need a reason to go out we could just go out.”

“Yeah, but it’s like… you know.”

He shook his head that he didn’t.

“It was our anniversary. They’re important and we totally missed it.”

“We can make it up. I’m sure the god of anniversaries will forgive us.”

Persephone gave him another light smack and saw out of the corner of her eye that Sophie and Liam were headed back towards the table. She gasped, “They’re coming back.”

“So they are.”

“How do you think it went?”

“Can’t tell.”

Sophie sat down. She didn’t seem happy or sad or even angry, her face was as placid as it normally was when nothing important was happening. Liam seemed oddly quiet.

Persephone, without being detected, tried as hard as she could to discern what the hell had just gone on. Unable to truthfully say which way the conversation had gone – Sophie could have said yes to a date and just be pretending like nothing happened so she could guard her feelings from the rest of the group just in case it didn’t work out, but maybe Liam had been rejected after all – her gut feeling told her that it was _slightly_ more certain that Liam had been rejected than not.

“You never answered my question,” Malachi pointed out.

“Huh?” Persephone asked, jarred from her thoughts.

“How was the sleepover? Did you guys have fun?”

“Yeah—”

“We were a regular group of Barbie and her ethnically inclusive friends,” Sophie offered.

“What?” Malachi asked, while Persephone cocked her head in confusion.

“Barbie, Teresa, and… Oh my god I’m blanking on her black friend’s name.”

Persephone put her chin in her hand. Having not thought about Barbies in a long time, she tried to pull the information from the recesses of her memory. “Nikki?”

“Yeah, Nikki!” Sophie said with an appreciative slap of the table. “I always forgot her name, my mom always got me Teresa.”

“Dude, I always had Teresa too. Nikki was never in the stores around here.”

“That sucks.”

“Yeah.”

“So you guys and Violet were Barbie and her friends?” Malachi asked with a laugh.

Persephone nodded. “The 90’s version of ‘ethnically diverse.’”

“One of each,” Sophie added with a laugh.

Malachi smiled and nodded.

“Where _is_ Violet?” Sophie asked.

Persephone and Malachi shrugged, Liam looked up, shrugged, and went back to his food.

“Maybe she’s with Alex?” Persephone offered. “Wait, did he answer my text?” Having completely forgotten about her phone in the drama that has ensued since she opened it, she checked for messages. “Oh, he says he had to talk to his guidance counselor and he’s on his way.” She texted him that he’d better hurry up because she wanted to make a group announcement and told him she was turning off her phone before she turned it off and put it back into her bag.

“So?” Malachi asked.

“Oh, umm… We watched a bunch of witchy movies… made a coven. Pact with the devil. That sort of thing.” She nodded.

“Just your regular sleepover fare,” Sophie added.

“Uh huh,” Malachi nodded. “And you guys didn’t do girly things like talk about boys?”

“Only when we were hexing them during our blood rites,” Persephone said as innocently as possible and looked at Sophie, who nodded.

Malachi laughed.

“Why do you want to know so bad? Afraid I was saying something bad about you?”

“No. More like, I didn’t want Sophie or Violet to faint or something.”

Persephone rolled her eyes and laughed, Malachi pulled her in close and kissed her slowly.

“Ewwww!” Sophie said and threw a fry.

Malachi caught it and threw it right back.

As they laughed, Alex walked over.

“Hey guys, sorry I’m late. What’d I miss?”

“Just mom and dad being _gross_ ,” Sophie said.

Alex laughed as he sat next to Liam.

“Finally,” Persephone pulled away from Malachi and slammed her hands flat on the table. “Guys, there’s a creature feature at the Twilight Drive-In, in Riverdale. It’s on the 27th, we should all go.”

Malachi chuckled at her enthusiasm.

“As a group?” Sophie asked.

“Yeah. What’s the point of… having a friend group if you don’t do things as a group with those friends?”

Sophie looked at Liam and Alex and, though she shrugged, nodded in the affirmative. This caused Alex and Liam to nod as well.

“Yeah,” Alex confirmed. “It sounds fun. Do you know what movies are playing?”

“Mmmno. But it’s their Halloween showing, so they do some kind of themed marathon every year.”

“We have it on good authority that it’s fun,” Malachi added.

Persephone nodded and stood. “Guys!” She shouted and was met with the quiet of the other members of the table. She hadn’t expected it would be so easy. “So, Saturday October 27th, we’re going to do like a group trip to the Twilight Drive-In in Riverdale. They’re having a Halloween-inspired movie marathon and Mal and I think it would be fun if we all went.”

Malachi stood up next to her. “So everyone start organizing who’s carpooling with who and gather up your ticket and popcorn money, on Saturday the 27th,” he paused dramatically for effect, “it’s time to get spooky.”

The table burst into cheers prompting a reprimand from one of the gym teachers who had been in charge of lunch order.


End file.
